(WOODLAND, Calif.) — An unattended 3-year-old was behind the wheel of a truck left running at a California gas station when the vehicle fatally struck a 2-year-old, authorities said.
The incident occurred Saturday in Woodland, in the Sacramento metropolitan area, police said.
The owner of the Dodge truck left the vehicle running while parked at a pump with his 3-year-old in a car seat and went into the gas station store, according to police. The 3-year-old then managed to get out of the car seat and into the driver’s seat, according to police.
“The truck began moving forward and it collided with a two-year-old child who was near a taco stand on the edge of the lot,” the Woodland Police Department said in a statement Monday.
Officers responded to a report of a child hit by a vehicle around 3:46 p.m., police said. The 2-year-old was seated at a table when the collision occurred, police said. Family members transported the toddler to a hospital, where she died from her injuries, police said.
The 2-year-old was identified by officials and her family as Ailahni Sanchez Martinez, of Woodland. Her father, Sandro Sanchez, told Sacramento ABC affiliate KXTV that she was about to turn 3 in April.
Witnesses told police they saw the 3-year-old in the driver seat, Woodland Police Sgt. Robert Towle told KXTV.
All parties involved have cooperated in the investigation, police said. An arrest has not been made, police said.
“We are working to ensure a thorough investigation is completed. This includes taking statements, analyzing evidence, reviewing video surveillance footage, creating scene diagrams, and completing investigative reports,” police said. “We ask for the community’s patience while this occurs.”
The completed investigation will be forwarded to the local district attorney’s office for review, police said.
A memorial to Ailahni has grown at the site of the collision, as her family is hoping for accountability.
“That person took a life from a little girl,” Sanchez told KXTV. “His truck was supposed to be in off.”
(NEW YORK) — Grace Jabbari, the ex-girlfriend of Jonathan Majors, whom he was convicted of assaulting in a trial last year, has sued the actor for defamation and other alleged injuries, according to the civil complaint.
ABC News’ Rachel Wenzlaff contributed to this report.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — A lawyer representing Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne in a defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems was arrested after a status hearing in Washington, D.C., where she acknowledged in court disseminating confidential documents from the voting machine company to law enforcement.
A judge in Michigan, where Stefanie Lambert is also facing criminal charges for allegedly tampering with voting machines, had issued an arrest warrant for the attorney. She is being charged with being a fugitive from justice for failing to show up for a hearing on March 7, police in Michigan said, but declined to elaborate further. The U.S. Marshals confirmed Lambert’s arrest.
According to Detroit News, her lawyer, Dan Hartman, had tried to get the warrant withdrawn claiming that her absence was due to communication issues with her former attorney.
Lambert was the focus of a status hearing Monday in the civil case after lawyers for Dominion requested to disqualify Lambert for allegedly violating a protective order.
The hearing is part of a lawsuit filed by Dominion against former President Donald Trump’s allies including Byrne, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Lindell, Sidney Powell and right-wing network OAN over allegations that they pushed false conspiracy theories that the voting machine company had helped to rig the 2020 presidential election in favor of Joe Biden. The defendants have denied any wrongdoing.
Lambert and her attorney did not immediately respond to ABC News’ requests for comment Tuesday.
During the hearing, Lambert said she gave the confidential documents to law enforcement “over a concern for fraud” and “criminal activity.”
“It’s very important that Congress and law enforcement investigate,” Lambert said.
“I believe Dominion has instituted fraud with this defamation suit,” she added. “There are ongoing elections … primaries … local elections.”
During the hearing, lawyers for Dominion said Lambert and her client, Byrne, used the documents from the lawsuit “to spread lies and cause harm.”
According to one of the lawyers for Dominion, one of the law enforcement officials that received the documents — some of which were classified — posted some of the confidential Dominion emails on X, formerly Twitter, on Monday.
“They took actions intentionally and they have no intention of stopping,” said an attorney for Dominion.
Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya admonished Lambert for not seeking to challenge the documents’ designation before sharing the discovery with law enforcement.
“You then gave … a tranche of documents that were clearly marked confidential to a third party,” said Judge Upadhyaya.
Upadhyaya ruled the documents be filed under seal and ordered that access to the repository, where documents are stored online, be blocked from Lambert temporarily.
Byrne was also ordered to appear at the next hearing.
Last year, Fox News agreed to pay $787.5 million to settle a defamation suit brought by Dominion alleging the network broadcast the false claims of election fraud. Fox News denied the claims and said the reporting was “newsworthy.”
Dominion’s $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against conservative network Newsmax on similar claims is scheduled to go to trial in late September 2024. Newsmax has said it “reported both sides” and previously retracted some it’s reporting surrounding the 2020 election as part of a settlement after it was sued by a Dominion employee in a separate suit.
(MIAMI) — Every March, Florida’s hottest beach locations are filled with college students from across the country enjoying the sun, drinks and energy of spring break.
But this year, things are different.
For the past few weeks, Miami Beach has posted public service announcements that encourage people to “break up with spring break,” and rethink their beach holidays after recent years have seen pandemonium in the streets, huge crowds of intoxicated people and shootings.
The city went as far as to impose a curfew last weekend, for the third year in a row.
The changes caught some spring breakers by surprise, as the big crowds of beachgoers were replaced with police barricades and a slightly subdued atmosphere.
“I like the low key but also for spring break, I also like a lot of people around,” Emily Ball, a senior at Penn State University, Harrisburg who recently visited Miami Beach for spring break, told “Nightline.” “We want to party.”
Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner told “Nightline” the large crowds have been getting out of hand over the last couple of years, prompting more police action.
About 30 miles up the beach in Fort Lauderdale, parties raged on. Beachfront bars and dance clubs overflowed with spring breakers. Hordes of young co-eds from colleges across the country showed up to let loose in the sun. . Beachgoers were seen drinking and partying.
Fort Lauderdale’s mayor trumpeted his city as a spring break destination, but the city did take extra precautions. Police provided bars with testing tools for drugs and lifeguards were given Narcan to prevent fatal overdoses.
Miami-based ABC affiliate WPLG spoke with Kephene Wash who traveled in from Tampa saying, “They broke up with us, so we had to slide down to Fort Lauderdale.”
In 2021, back in Miami Beach police resorted to using pepper balls to try and control the crowds.
Two years ago, five people were wounded in two separate spring break shootings.
Last year, two people were killed on the city’s Ocean Drive in two separate shootings. Video was captured showing crowds running for safety as shots rang out.
“The crowds were so excessive in past years that you had these modified stampedes. That in itself became dangerous,” Meiner said.
The mayor said that the new rules were not meant to deter tourists from visiting Miami Beach.
“We want people to play by the rules or obey the law,” he said.
Officer Christopher Bess, of the Miami Beach Police Department, told “Nightline” that “breaking up” with spring break didn’t mean that the city would lose its essence.
“We’re talking about the unlawful behavior, and that’s 365 days, year-round,” he said.
Ball and Marc Bijeclic, a student at Penn State University, Lehigh Valley, documented the subdued Miami Beach in cell phone video they shared with “Nightline.”
Although the spring breakers said they were enjoying their visit, it was still a shock to see the smaller crowds and bigger police presence.
“Looking at these videos, I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh. Like, what did we just get ourselves into?'” Ball said.
On Friday, the city of Miami announced a three-night midnight curfew “to assist in maintaining public safety on this spring break weekend,” according to Miami Beach City Manager Alina Hudak.
Some business owners said that they were concerned about the rising safety issues with each spring break, but at the same time concerned about what the new restrictions would mean for their bottom line.
David Wallack, the owner of Mango’s Tropical Café, recalled a stampede of people on the sidewalk outside his establishment during last year’s spring break.
“What goes on for spring break is a street party. They’re not really customers, per se, of our businesses, and that’s what also makes it so difficult,” he told “Nightline.”
Wallack, however, said Mango’s removal of outdoor seating was going to hurt business.
“There it goes, 30%, 35% of our business right there,” he said.
“We all have hope, but the reality will play itself out,” Wallack added. “It’s as the guru says, ‘We’ll see’.”
Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
(BUFFALO, Ny.) — A judge has allowed the lawsuit against YouTube and Reddit related to the 2022 deadly Tops supermarket shooting in Buffalo, New York, to move forward.
The lawsuit, filed by survivors of the shooting and a family member of a victim, claims that the two social media brands were “instrumental in preparing the shooter to commit his heinous attack.”
Ten people, all African American, were killed in a racially motivated mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, in May 2022, an attack that shook the nation and underscored a rise in white supremacy across the country.
In the shooter’s plan to attack the supermarket, he described the radical, racist and antisemitic ideals he said he cultivated on the internet.
“Their unreasonably dangerous and negligent design choices resulted in the shooter’s addiction to their products, and caused him to develop the mentality required to target and kill Black people who were innocently shopping at their local market,” the lawsuit states.
It continues, “In addition to facilitating the shooter’s radicalization, the design of these social media platforms provided the shooter with knowledge regarding the tools, products, and skills he needed to commit the mass shooting at Tops.”
Erie County Supreme Court Judge Paula L. Feroleto denied YouTube and Reddit’s motions to dismiss the complaint. The social media platforms had argued that because they hosted third-party content, they were not liable under the Communications Decency Act and the First Amendment. Both companies plan on appealing the decision.
In a statement to ABC News, a Reddit spokesperson said “hate and violence have no place on Reddit.”
The spokesperson cited their sitewide policies, which prohibit content that “promotes hate based on identity or vulnerability, as well as content that encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual or group of people,” they said.
The statement continued, “We are constantly evaluating ways to improve our detection and removal of this content, including through enhanced image-hashing systems, and we will continue to review the communities on our platform to ensure they are upholding our rules.”
In a statement to ABC News, a YouTube spokesperson expressed “the deepest sympathies” for the victims and families of the Tops shooting.
“Through the years, YouTube has invested in technology, teams, and policies to identify and remove extremist content,” said spokesperson José Castañeda. “While we disagree with today’s decision and will be appealing, we will continue to work with law enforcement, other platforms, and civil society to share intelligence and best practices.”
Feroleto’s decision comes just weeks after she denied motions to dismiss from the gun store Vintage Firearms, LLC and gun part manufacturer MEAN Arms, two other defendants in the case.
Everytown Law, the anti-gun violence legal advocacy group, claims that Mean Arms “manufactured a gun lock that provided a fake veneer of compliance with New York gun laws” and that Vintage Firearms, LLC, sold him an “illegal AR-15-style rifle.”
The complaint claims RMA Armament, the third defendant in the case, “equipped the shooter with combat-grade body armor without reasonable vetting.”
ABC News reached out to Vintage Firearms, LLC, MEAN Arms and RMA Armament for comment on the lawsuit.
(NEW YORK) — The Mega Millions jackpot has surged to $875 million ahead of Tuesday night’s drawing.
The jackpot prize has a cash value of $413.5 million, which can be offered as a one-time lump sum payment, or an immediate payment followed by 29 annual payments.
The total of $875 million is the sixth-largest in Mega Millions history. The drawing is at 11 p.m. ET.
The numbers Saturday night were 13, 25, 50, 51, 66 and gold Mega Ball 6. While there was no big winner, one person in New York won $1 million for matching the five white balls.
There have been 28 consecutive drawings without a jackpot winner. The last jackpot was won on Dec. 8.
Newly arrived migrants receive an afternoon meal from Trinity Services and Food For the Homeless, across from Tompkins Square Park on Jan. 24, 2024 in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — New York City has become a focal point in the national debate on immigration. City officials have stated that more than 180,000 asylum-seekers have passed through the city’s intake system since spring 2022, in some cases bused in by officials from cities along the U.S. southern border.
New York has struggled to house, feed and process the wave of asylum-seekers, leading Mayor Eric Adams to call on federal officials for financial support and policy change.
Adams recently proposed that the federal government implement a “decompression strategy” to distribute people seeking asylum throughout the country instead of just into certain cities.
“Cities should not be handling a national crisis of this magnitude,” he said in a January interview with ABC News’ GMA3. “We’re going to start seeing the visualization of this crisis. We’ve done a great job, but we can’t continue to sustain this.”
But what could this kind of policy mean for the United States, which is facing a backlog of 4.3 million immigration cases, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office?
The State of New York is facing an estimated backlog of 330,000 pending immigration cases, according to an analysis of Department of Homeland Security data by Syracuse University researchers.
“We’re in the issue that we are because we have been asking the administration to address this issue for years before,” said Marlene Galaz, director of immigrant rights policy at the New York Immigration Council. “So it’s really a problem of negligence and not a problem of migrants arriving.”
Seeking asylum by arriving in the United States is lawful immigration, several New York officials, including Mayor Adams, have acknowledged.
The ‘decompression strategy’
The proposed strategy is one that has long been acknowledged by immigration scholars and researchers, according to Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the Migrant Policy Institute (MPI) and director of the MPI office at NYU School of Law. He said the strategy to process asylum-seeking migrants would be akin to the refugee resettlement programs in place throughout the country.
“We take refugees from abroad, they come in and we — the federal government — decide where they’re going to settle,” said Chishti. “The federal government should decide where they go — not [Texas Gov. Greg] Abbott, not buses. And the federal government should make the decision based on: do they have any family they can live with, because family first. If they don’t have family, then we send them to the parts of the country where there is need for workers and where the housing is cheap — not cheap, but inexpensive.”
Chishti then suggested that states who accept asylum-seekers could be compensated by the federal government, as to not face any fiscal hardship and to incentivize communities.
In a Sept. 8 statement, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said “only Congress can really reform.”
She continued, “You hear us say that all the time: this broken system that has broke — been broken for the past couple of decades, this immigration system — and so, we — that — that could provide additional assistance. The President has done all that he can from his perch, but we need more, and we need Congress to act.”
According to the International Rescue Committee, refugees are often placed in cities where they already have relatives or friends, or where an established community shares their language or culture to make for an easier transition toward stability — however, refugees are given final choice in where they resettle. Cost of living and access to health care are also taken into consideration.
“We have to accept that this is not a Texas versus New York problem or rural vs. urban problem — this is a national problem,” said Chishti.
However, other immigration experts warn that migrants who have been bused from states like Texas to New York City and Chicago have reported poor or unsafe conditions while being transported.
“We have reports of people having to go hours — up to eight hours — on buses with no air conditioning and no bathroom during the summer,” said Galaz. “It continues to use migrants as like pawns, just moving them around without accounting for the people’s agency and means.”
Galaz said that redistributing migrants could fail to acknowledge the “humanity of them of migrants, the community ties that they might or might already be building.”
New York City Council Member Alexa Avilés said the administration has not engaged with the City Council over the proposed migration solution Adams has touted.
“I’m not sure rerouting people to random places is actually going to address the screening problem we have with the current system,” said Avilés.
However, she added that this would require the federal government “to really do meaningful investment, capital investment into the infrastructure.”
ABC News reached out to Mayor Adams’ office for further comment on the proposed immigration solution.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and other leaders from around the country sent an open letter in January to White House and Congressional leaders with infrastructure concerns: “Communities along the southern border – as well as interior states and cities across the country – lack the vast coordinated infrastructure needed to respond to the humanitarian and public safety concerns of those seeking lawful entry into the United States.”
New York’s current policies
New York City officials say they have opened up more than 200 emergency sites to address the influx of migrants — including more than 90 shelters.
The city and local advocacy groups have been at odds over the city’s right-to-shelter laws, although they have since come to an agreement about limits over migrants’ ability to stay in city shelters.
The New York State Constitution states that “the aid, care and support of the needy are public concerns and shall be provided by the state and by such of its subdivisions, and in such manner and by such means, as the legislature may from time to time determine.”
Now, according to the mayor’s office, most adult migrants will now have to leave New York City homeless shelters after 30 days and lose their ability to reapply unless they are experiencing “extenuating circumstances.” Individuals under 23 years of age will be provided 60 days of shelter. Migrant families with children will not be subject to such restrictions.
Families with children represented 78% of the asylum-seeking population in NYC-funded shelters in January data on the shelter population, according to the NYC Comptroller’s Office.
The policy initially gave families with children 60-day notices to find alternative shelter, sparking an investigation from New York City Comptroller Brad Lander.
“We have concerns about the fiscal implications of the stated policy that the administration is executing, among them, how case management resources are being distributed, whether evictions or shelter relocations will impact migrants’ ability to obtain work authorization and appropriate immigration status, and the costs of uprooting and moving families from their existing rooms and school communities,” the comptroller said in a January statement on the policy.
New York City is also a sanctuary city, which limits the city’s cooperation with the federal immigration authorities.
Adams appeared to call for a change in these policies amid several high-profile incidents in NYC connected with migrants.
“If you commit a felony, a violent act, we should be able to turn you over to ICE and have you deported,” the mayor said during a news conference.
If an asylum-seeker has been charged with a crime but not convicted, New York’s sanctuary city status prevents them from working with ICE agents.
The City Council has said it has no plans to revisit the sanctuary city laws when contacted for comment by ABC News.
“Our city’s sanctuary policies, quite frankly, it just made us a safer city,” said Avilés in an interview. “For immigrant communities, they know they can go to a hospital. They can engage with first responders without fear of deportation. If experiencing exploitation in the workplace, they can begin to address that. So sanctuary policies have just made our city safer and it really helps to build trust between New Yorkers.”
Adams’ suggestion was met with ire and disapproval from immigration analysts and City Council members alike, sounding the alarm on potentially turning over people who have not been given due process.
“No one should be automatically deported from this country or handed over to ICE just because they are suspected of committing a crime. That just doesn’t fit in our constitutional system of due process of law,” said Chishti.
(NEW YORK) — The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s criminal prosecution in New York has denied Trump’s attempts to exclude evidence related to the Access Hollywood tape and testimony from key witnesses from his upcoming criminal trial, but prosecutors will not be permitted to play the infamous tape to jurors.
The defense argued Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, should not be allowed to testify because he has a history of lying, arguing that calling him to the witness stand would amount to suborning perjury.
Judge Juan Merchan rejected the argument.
“This Court has been unable to locate any treatise, statute or holding from courts in this jurisdiction or others that support defendant’s rational that a particular witness should be kept off the witness stand because his credibility has been previously called into question,” Merchan said.
He also will allow Stormy Daniels to testify since she is the recipient of the $130,000 hush payment at the center of the case, writing, “The probative value of the evidence is evident.“
Merchan also ruled that prosecutors will not be permitted to play the Access Hollywood tape — on which Trump is overheard bragging about how he approaches women — to the jury or introduce it into evidence. However, prosecutors are allowed to elicit testimony about the tape and how it prompted Trump to fear its impact on his presidential aspirations.
“Thus, the tape helps establish Defendant’s intent and motive for making the payment to Daniels and then attempting to conceal them,” the ruling said.
Trump is facing 34 felony counts of falsifying business records after being indicted by a Manhattan grand jury.
In court documents unsealed April 4, prosecutors alleged Trump engaged in a “scheme” to boost his chances during the 2016 presidential election through a series of hush money payments made by others and the falsification of New York business records to cover up that alleged criminal conduct.
In a statement of facts accompanying the indictment, Manhattan prosecutors allege Trump made payments to his lawyer to reimburse him for a payment the lawyer made to one woman.
Trump, who has denied all wrongdoing, pleaded not guilty to all 34 counts.
Trump’s criminal trial in New York has been delayed until at least mid-April.
(ATLANTA) — Former President Donald Trump and some of his co-defendants in the Fulton County election interference case on Monday kicked off the process to appeal the judge’s disqualification ruling that ultimately kept District Attorney Fani Willis on the case, asking the court in a new motion to grant a certificate of immediate review.
“A criminal defendant is entitled to a disinterested prosecutor,” the Monday filing states.
Trump and his co-defendants must be granted the certificate by Judge Scott McAfee, who oversees the case, in order to appeal his ruling on the disqualification issue up to the Georgia Court of Appeals. If McAfee declines to grant the certificate, they cannot appeal the ruling at this time. If Trump and his co-defendants are granted the certificate, it is left to the Georgia Court of Appeals to determine if they will take it up — a move some legal experts say could result in a pause in the case.
Nathan Wade, the lead prosecutor in the Fulton County election interference case, resigned Friday as special prosecutor following a ruling by the judge overseeing the case. Wade’s resignation came hours after McAfee declined to outright disqualify Willis, but ruled either she or Wade must step aside from the case due to a “significant appearance of impropriety” stemming from a romantic relationship between Willis and Wade.
Per the judge’s ruling, Wade’s resignation means Willis and the rest of her team will remain on the case.
The joint filing Monday afternoon from Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, Michael Roman and others states Wade’s resignation is “insufficient” to “cure the appearance of impropriate the Court has determined exists.” The filing also notes the lack of “appellate guidance” previously on the issue.
“Whether District Attorney Willis and her Office are permitted to continue representing the State of Georgia in prosecuting the Defendants in this action is of the utmost importance to this case, and ensuring the appellate courts have the opportunity to weigh in on these matters pre-trial is paramount,” the filing states.
In his ruling, McAfee ultimately decided the defendants failed to prove that Willis’ romantic relationship with Wade — and their subsequent travel — amounted to a conflict of interest. But McAfee said there was a “significant appearance of impropriety” left with the case.
The filing from Trump on Monday also states that “immediate appellate review” is needed of the order “based upon the personal stake that she has acquired in this prosecution,” saying the appellate court would likely find Willis’ disqualification is “required” based solely on the appearance of impropriety.
Trump and his codefendants also warned that if the certificate is not granted and the case goes to trial but then is later overturned on appeal, that would “likely require the retrial of every convicted defendant.”
“Given the length and complexity of the trial(s) in this case … either the Court nor the Parties should run an unnecessary risk of having to go through that process more than once,” the filing states.
The motion restates the defendants’ position that “relevant case law requires dismissal of the case, or at the very least, the disqualification of the District Attorney and her entire office.”
McAfee’s highly anticipated ruling on Friday followed a contentious, monthslong disqualification effort spearheaded by Trump and his co-defendants over allegations of misconduct against Willis, which she has fiercely denied.
Roman and several other Trump co-defendants first sought Willis’ disqualification from the election case over allegations that she benefited financially from her romantic relationship with prosecutor Wade, whom she hired for the case, through vacations they took that were often booked on his credit card.
Willis and Wade admitted to the relationship, but said it “does not amount to a disqualifying conflict of interest” and that the relationship “has never involved direct or indirect financial benefit to District Attorney Willis.” The DA testified that she often paid Wade back in cash for trips they took.
McAfee held several days of hearings to hear arguments over the allegations, during which both Willis and Wade took the stand to deliver emotional testimony.
Outside of allegations of financial misconduct, a debate later emerged over the exact timeline of their romantic relationship. Trump’s attorney said both Willis and Wade were “not truthful” when they testified that the relationship began in 2022, after Wade was hired in 2021, urging the judge to disqualify them based on that testimony alone.
Willis’ office dismissed the defendants’ overall disqualification efforts as “absurd” and said there was “absolutely no evidence that [Willis] received any financial gain or benefit.” They insisted that in order to disqualify her, the law requires the judge to find evidence of a conflict of interest or forensic misconduct.
Trump and 18 others pleaded not guilty last August to all charges in a sweeping racketeering indictment for alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia.
Defendants Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis and Scott Hall subsequently took plea deals in exchange for agreeing to testify against other defendants.
The former president has dismissed the district attorney’s investigation as being politically motivated.
(NEW YORK) — Six former Rankin County, Mississippi, law enforcement officers are set to be sentenced beginning Tuesday morning after pleading guilty to federal charges stemming from the racially motivated torture of two Black men during an incident that took place on Jan. 24, 2023.
Former Rankin County sheriff’s (RCSO) deputies Brett McAlpin, Christian Dedmon, Hunter Elward, Jeffrey Middleton and Daniel Opdyke, along with Joshua Hartfield, a former Richland police officer, pleaded guilty to a total of 16 federal charges related to the torture and physical abuse of three Rankin County men in two unrelated incidents, according to a statement released by U.S. Department of Justice on Aug. 3, 2023.
The charges include civil rights conspiracy, deprivation of rights under color of law, discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence, conspiracy to obstruct justice and obstruction of justice.
According to the charging documents, the incident on Jan. 2023 took place when a white neighbor claimed in a complaint to McAlpin, the chief RCSO investigator, that she observed “suspicious activity” from Black men staying at a nearby property.
McAlpin asked Dedmon, who was an RCSO investigator at the time, to look into the incident, and Dedmon proceeded to reach out to a group of shift officers who called themselves “The Goon Squad” because of their “willingness to use excessive force and not report it,” according to the documents.
During the incident, the officers beat Jenkins and Parker, sexually assaulted them with a sex toy and shocked them with Tasers for roughly 90 minutes while handcuffed, according to court documents obtained by ABC News. Jenkins was also shot in the mouth by Elward, per the DOJ.
And while Jenkins was bleeding on the floor, instead of providing medical aid, the officers “devised a false cover story to cover up their misconduct” and proceeded to “plant” and “tamper with evidence” to corroborate their story, the DOJ said.
“The defendants in this case tortured and inflicted unspeakable harm on their victims, egregiously violated the civil rights of citizens who they were supposed to protect, and shamefully betrayed the oath they swore as law enforcement officers,” DOJ Sec. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement on Aug. 3, 2023. “The Justice Department will hold accountable officers who abuse the public trust that is essential to public safety.”
The officers admitted that on Jan. 24, 2023, they entered a home where Jenkins and Parker were staying in Braxton, Rankin County, Mississippi, where they handcuffed and arrested the two men “without probable cause to believe they had committed any crime, called them racial slurs, and warned them to stay out of Rankin County,” the DOJ said in a statement on Aug. 3, 2023, announcing the guilty pleas.
According to the federal charging documents obtained by ABC News, sentencing maximums range from three years in prison for lesser offenses to life in prison for the most serious offense of discharging of a firearm during a crime of violence.
The two victims — Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker — spoke out during a press conference Monday morning about the enduring trauma of the experience as their attorneys called on the judge to give the former officers the “maximum sentence.”
“I’d like to thank everybody for supporting us and believing in us,” said Jenkins, who was shot in the mouth during the incident. “It’s been very hard for me this past year. I’m just looking forward to justice tomorrow. I hope they do right. Hope for the best and prepare for the worst.”
Parker, who is set to testify during the sentencing hearings this week, per his attorney, said that it’s been a “hard year,” and he’s glad that the day of sentencing, which was delayed twice before, has finally come.
“Everything needs to be done right because everything was done wrong,” Parker said. “What’s done already, man, can’t be erased; it can’t be taken back. I relive this every day.”
Malik Shabazz, the lead attorney for Jenkins and Parker, said that his clients have “been through a lot of trauma” and called on U.S. District Judge Tom Lee to give each of the former officers the “maximum sentence.”
“The day of justice has finally come,” he said. “That’s an important day, not only in Mississippi, but this is an important day for accountability for police brutality, all throughout America. Police officers are watching this sentencing … they’re watching to see whether law enforcement in Mississippi and law enforcement in America will be held sufficiently accountable for their acts of torture and brutality.”
The officers have not responded to ABC News’ requests for comment.
Dedmon, Elward and Opdyke also pleaded guilty to three additional federal felony offenses related to a separate incident that took place on Dec. 4, 2022, per the DOJ.
The U.S. The Department of Justice launched an investigation into the incident in Feb. 2023, along with the FBI, amid outrage from the community and as attorneys for Jenkins and Parker filed a notice of claim for a $400 million federal lawsuit. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation also investigated the case that led to state charges against the officers.
“It’s in court, and we’re fighting,” Shabazz told ABC News on Monday when asked about the status of the lawsuit.
In an Oct. 2023 response to the complaint obtained by ABC News, the officers denied the allegations alleged in the lawsuit.
