The House, with one dissenting vote, passed legislation Tuesday that would continue to provide Mississippi private schools millions of dollars from state tax credits to educate foster children and students with a chronic illness or a disability, though the author of the bill could not say how many of those children are actually being educated.
The bill will increase from $18 million a year to $48 million a year the amount of money from tax credits that private schools and charitable organizations that serve foster children can receive. Half of the money would go to the charitable organizations that provide services to foster children and the other half would go to the private schools. A person can make a donation to a private school and receive a dollar-for-dollar tax credit.
According to the Department of Revenue web site, the private schools receiving funds through the tax credits in past years include:
Jackson Academy, $341,000
Madison Ridgeland Academy, 397,720
Canton Academy, 349,295
Tupelo Christian Preparatory School, 308,900
Parklane Academy in McComb, $196,500
Tunica Academy, $141,800
LeFlore Christian School, $7,500
A long list of private schools receiving funds from the program can be found on the Department of Revenue web site. But what cannot be found is the number of children being helped through the Children’s Promise Act.
When the bill was passed five years ago, it was touted as a method to help foster children and to save the state money by keeping them out of the state foster care system. But the legislation, when it passed, had another section providing the tax credit option to go to schools that educate children “who have a chronic illness or physical, intellectual, developmental or emotional disability” or who are economically disadvantaged.
Rep. Daryl Porter, D-Summit, asked House Ways and Means Chair Trey Lamar, R-Senatobia, how many children fitting into one of those categories were being educated in the private schools. Lamar, the author of the bill, said he did not have that information but would get it to him.
Lamar said the program has saved the state millions of dollars by keeping foster children out of the state system. He said it had helped countless children.
“It has been a very successful tax credit program,” he said.
Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, who unsuccessfully offered amendments to try to direct more of the money toward the charities helping foster children and toward poor children, said one of the problems with the legislation is that no one seemed to be able answer to Porter’s question, which is how many students in the underserved categories were attending the private academies.
“Do you know whether they are or are not providing these services in addition to being a traditional private schools?” Rep. Shanda Yates, I-Jackson, asked Johnson.
“Nobody has made that clear to me. I don’t have anything to show that they do,” said Johnson.
“But you don’t have anything to show they aren’t,” said Yates, who like most of the House voted for the bill.
All of the legislators with the exception of Rep. Jeramey Anderson, D-Moss Point, either voted for the bill or did not vote. Many voted for it because of the foster child component.
But after the vote, Johnson held the bill on a motion to reconsider, offering the opportunity for additional debate on the bill.
The Midsouth Association of Independent Schools, which includes most of the private schools in the state, said in a paper titled “The ABCs of school choice” that tax credits with revenue going to private schools was more advantageous than vouchers.
“Freedom advocates, instead, look for policies like tuition tax credits and tax credits for donations to scholarship funds, to free up resources so that parents and donors can fund their own choices. Such policies expand choice for parents without shifting the burden for their children onto others.”
The House might reconsider the legislation in the coming days. It still must be approved by the Senate before being sent to Gov. Tate Reeves, who has been a school choice advocate, for his approval.
No one more deeply understands the fraught politics of pushing Medicaid expansion in a red state than North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper.
When the Democrat moved to expand Medicaid in 2017, the state’s legislative Republicans sued him in federal court to block him. Their years-long opposition to expansion, much like the sustained GOP blockade here in Mississippi, was rooted in little more than blind politics.
The expansion program, of course, runs through the Affordable Care Act, perhaps the biggest legacy of President Barack Obama. The all-too-familiar logic of North Carolina’s Republicans in opposing Cooper’s expansion effort: Obamacare is bad, Republican power is good.
Unsuccessful at first, Cooper got to work. He traveled his state to listen to constituents, and for years he led a coordinated pro-expansion effort. He pieced together a bipartisan coalition that became too powerful for the GOP lawmakers to ignore. Business leaders lobbied, health professionals pleaded, religious leaders prayed.
At long last, in 2023, North Carolina became the 40th and most recent state to expand Medicaid. An overwhelming majority of legislative Republicans — yes, even most of the loudest earlier opponents — ultimately voted yea.
“That was one of the greatest days of my life,” Cooper told me in an interview on Tuesday. “It was a day that changed so many lives, and the people of North Carolina are better off today for it in every way.”
Cooper has been following the high-profile debate of Medicaid expansion in the Mississippi Capitol this year. Here in Jackson, House Republicans overwhelmingly passed an expansion proposal on Feb. 29. But Senate Republicans are stalling and proposing their own plan — one that is so watered down and ineffectual that Mississippi wouldn’t be considered an expansion state if it passes.
As major deadlines approach and the politics heat up, expansion in Mississippi is still far from reality.
The North Carolina governor said he noticed a recent tweet from Republican Gov. Tate Reeves using yet another one of those tired “Obama is bad” lines.
“It’s really quite sad, isn’t it?” Cooper asked me rhetorically.
Truthfully, Mississippi Republicans have little reason to care what Cooper has to say. But before you write off his words, know this: Two different times, North Carolinians elected Cooper on the same ballot that Republican Donald Trump won. Let that sink in: A majority of North Carolina voters elected a Democratic governor while casting votes for Trump on the same ballot. He’s clearly trusted and respected by many Republican voters in his state. Few politicians in America could claim that level of crossover support these days.
His popularity, many in the Tar Heel State believe, got Medicaid expanded and will provide health care coverage to an estimated 600,000 North Carolinians.
So when I got a few minutes with the political savant this week, I couldn’t help but ask: What would he say to Mississippi lawmakers as they’re considering expansion?
“Listen to your constituents instead of the partisan rhetoric,” Cooper responded. “You’ll hear from small business owners that they’re having a hard time affording health insurance for their employees. You’ll hear from rural county commissioners and local government officials that their rural hospitals are in danger of closing. You’ll hear from local law enforcement officers that they’re spending a lot of time dealing with people who are mentally ill or have substance use disorder. If you listen to doctors and health care providers, they’ll tell you they’re having a difficult time treating indigent patients. And if you talk to people who are working hard, making a living and just can’t afford health insurance, they’ll tell you this is a great deal for Mississippi.”
Did you catch that? Cooper doesn’t care if Mississippi lawmakers listen to him; he just wants them to listen to their constituents. Considering the vast support for expansion among Mississippi health care leaders, business leaders and voters of all party affiliations, that fundamental political concept has clearly been shelved here in recent weeks.
North Carolina expansion went into effect in December 2023, so it’s still early days. But what are the effects so far?
“Already we’re seeing thousands of prescriptions being filled, so obviously there were a lot of people who were not getting the regular preventative drugs that they should have,” Cooper said, which one could easily take as a nod toward Mississippians being consistently ranked the unhealthiest populous in the nation.
He continued: “And look, this will help the private sector. It’s one of the reasons we had a number of local chambers of commerce endorse Medicaid expansion. When you have indigent patients who get treated and providers can’t recover the money, they go to the private sector. Studies have been overwhelming in showing that Medicaid expansion can help control private health care costs.”
There’s logic in that answer that mirrors the numerous studies showing expansion in Mississippi would have similar effects. But in this Mississippi debate, logic has too often taken a backseat to pure, unadulterated politics. This is, perhaps, where we could use Cooper’s unique perspective most.
So I ask: Many so-called conservatives in Mississippi are making this exclusively about politics, arguing simply that expansion is not conservative enough. Knowing what you know on the other side of this fight, what would you say to them?
“It saves people money, so it’s conservative. It saves businesses money, so it’s conservative. It saves lives, so it’s conservative,” he said. “… It’s been hard to find people in North Carolina who are against it after we passed it. And it was an overwhelming majority of legislators from both parties who supported this at the end of the day.”
Mississippi lawmakers can listen to Cooper or not. But the guy has been down the very road they find themselves on right now. And the stakes for so many Mississippians couldn’t be higher.
After swift backlash from existing casinos and some Republican lawmakers, a state House leader says he will let his bill to give special treatment to an unnamed developer to build one in downtown Jackson die in his committee.
In a move that caught gaming regulators and the Mississippi casino industry by surprise, a bill being fast-tracked in the House on Tuesday would have allowed — and provided state support — for a casino on the Pearl River in Jackson.
“As encouragement to the people who had requested this bill and been willing to put their money where their mouth is, so to speak, and offered to invest literally somewhere pushing $1 billion in the city of Jackson — don’t give up hope,” House Ways and Means Chairman Trey Lamar said in a Tuesday committee meeting.
It appears the as yet unnamed developer of this casino would have received unprecedented special treatment never shown another casino in Mississippi, including state financial backing and opening one specific site in a county that otherwise does not allow legalized gambling. The measure would appear to have gone against three decades of state casino policies including a “level playing field” free-market system for potential developers.
The Mississippi Gaming and Hospitality Association, which represents 26 member casinos across the state, also quickly sent a letter in opposition of the move to Gov. Tate Reeves and legislative leaders on Tuesday.
“This legislation will authorize an expansion of gaming that is unprecedented in the 34 years since legal gaming was authorized,” the letter said. “From the inception, legal gaming has been strictly limited to certain statutorily described areas of the state … the three most southern counties … or on the Mississippi River …”
The letter says many casinos have already been hard-hit by legalized gambling in neighboring states and allowing special treatment for one developer to open in Jackson would “divert the single largest source of customers” in state from there and would hurt the river casinos and devastate Vicksburg.
The letter also noted that lawmakers, when they allowed Coast casinos to rebuild onshore after they were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, made clear gambling would not be expanded beyond the areas already being allowed in 2005. In the past, religious leaders have fought expansion of casino boundaries.
Donn Mitchell, a principal with Mississippi-based Foundation Gaming Group, which owns Waterview Casino in Vicksburg and Fitz Casino and Hotel in Tunica, said the state backing and carveout for an individual developer in Jackson would be unfair to those who have invested millions under current rules. He said the move could have a chilling effect on capital investment in current developments or legal gambling areas statewide — with companies fearing shifting sands of state casino regulations and jurisdictions.
“We are not opposed to competition, and have nothing against Jackson, but changing the rules midstream after we’ve invested tens of millions of dollars — with no state loans — to restore a troubled casino is not fair,” Mitchell said. “We know Jackson needs development, but so does Vicksburg. The two industries in Vicksburg are gaming and the Corps of Engineers and you’re talking about gutting one of them.”
Democratic Rep. Oscar Denton and Republican Rep. Kevin Ford, both from Vicksburg, said they oppose the legislation because it would likely cause residents in the Jackson metro area to stop visiting Vicksburg casinos, a crucial anchor of the Warren County economy.
“Anything this close would affect us greatly with employees, economically,” Denton said. “It would affect us greatly. There’s no question about that. We both want Jackson to thrive. But we want to try and help it another way.”
The House GOP caucus met behind closed doors at noon for its usual weekly meeting, and enough of its members were opposed to ensure the measure didn’t have enough votes to pass the full chamber, according to Ford.
Lamar, a Republican from Senatobia, late Monday filed House Bill 1989, for the state to provide loans and borrow money to help a casino development in the Jackson Capitol Complex Improvement District.
The bill would sidestep the normal processes for a casino, and is aimed at helping only the one developer, unnamed in the bill. It would create a special fund for the project, and provide loans and issue bonds.
Lamar told Mississippi Today on Tuesday morning that the state-sponsored loan spelled out in the legislation would be used to develop infrastructure around the proposed casino site.
“You’re adding a (casino) license on a river that is currently not allowed,” Lamar told Mississippi Today on Tuesday morning. “Right now, the casinos are allowed on the Coast and along the Mississippi River. This would allow the same thing for development on the Pearl River.”
Both the director of the state Gaming Commission and the head of the Mississippi Gaming and Hospitality Association said they were caught by surprise by the proposal.
Mississippi’s casino industry has been praised for operating on a free-market system, with all developers going through the same licensing and other processes on a level field and the state has not in the past financially helped an individual project. The state has to-date avoided the scandal, corruption and organized crime that some other states have seen with legalized gambling — often centered around permitting and licensing developments.
“Most people look at that (free market system) as what has helped our system be successful,” said Jay McDaniel, director of the Mississippi Gaming Commission. “… All I can tell you is this is pretty much a surprise. The Gaming Commission has not been consulted … The question for me is, who makes the decision who gets that license?”
The bill says the site of the casino development would be within 6,000 feet of the state Capitol, owned by someone already operating a casino and would have a minimum capital investment of $500 million.
The bill would not open up other locations along the Pearl River for casino developments. Instead, Lamar said the bill only allows for developers to construct one, single casino in downtown Jackson because “nobody else has asked.”
“If somebody wants to come in on the other side of the Pearl in Rankin County and put in a competing billion-dollar casino, I’m sure we would look at that as well,” Lamar said. “You want to talk about an economic game changer for downtown Jackson and the CCID. This is 2,000-plus jobs.”
Larry Gregory, director of the Mississippi Gaming and Hospitality Association, as he waited outside the Ways and Means committee room Tuesday, said he and member casino operators were also caught by surprise by the measure.
A Senate leader on Tuesday said that former Gov. Haley Barbour has recently pushed the casino development with state lawmakers.
Senate leaders, including Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, appeared to know little about the proposal. Hosemann said if the bill comes over from the House, “then I will look at the bill,” and that he would not comment as, “I have not read it yet.”
Senate Finance Chairman Josh Harkins, R-Flowood, Lamar’s counterpart in the Senate, said, “I don’t know really anything about it. I just heard it start being mentioned.”
Mississippi’s business leaders and hospitals each have formidable lobbies, and neither has been shy over the years about nudging a reluctant state Legislature in one direction or another if it dawdles on an important issue.
But their relative silence (only recently) on the most profound issue before lawmakers in a generation — expanding Medicaid coverage to the working poor — has been deafening.
It could be a life-or-death issue for tens of thousands of people in the poorest of states with many Third World health metrics. It’s a monumental issue for the fiscal stability of foundering rural hospitals. It’s a crucial workforce issue for businesses and economic development. It’s a major financial issue for the state.
So why are we mostly hearing crickets from two of the most powerful groups in the commonwealth, on an issue in which they’ve both got serious skin in the game?
They appear to be suffering a condition known as Fear of Tate, or FOT. It’s a condition peculiar to the Magnolia State, now into the second term of Gov. Tate Reeves. It usually presents any time there’s a partisan politically charged issue before our leaders. It manifests itself in timidity or political rhetoric replacing thoughtful approach, and bad, sometimes unworkable or downright asinine policy proposals that poorly serve the average Mississippian.
Reeves has worked hard to instill FOT. He plays partisan political hardball. His main policy is “no.” He holds political grudges until the end of time and will get even if possible. And he’s managed to tamp down business lobby influence and darned-near snuffed out the hospital association lobby.
The Mississippi Hospital Association — then including leaders from the state’s largest hospitals — had for years been a vocal advocate for accepting billions of federal dollars to expand Medicaid coverage to working poor and uninsured Mississippians, like most other states have done. Hospitals had grown weary of eating hundreds of millions of dollars a year in costs of treating uninsured Mississippians.
Hospitals did some quick math, and figured $1 billion a year in federal money was more than $0. The hospital association started a ballot-initiative drive to sidestep Reeves and the Legislature and put the issue directly to voters. When the state Supreme Court derailed that drive, the hospital association’s PAC plunked down $250,000 on the campaign of Reeves’ opponent last year, Democrat Brandon Presley, a vocal supporter of Medicaid expansion.
Well, Reeves understandably didn’t like that. It’s unclear what cajoling he did, but the next thing you know, the state’s largest hospitals appeared to catch a case of FOT. They left the Mississippi Hospital Association like it was on fire, and soon thereafter, its longtime director was fired. Just like that, a major political lobby and its efforts at Medicaid expansion were defanged.
But Reeves, steadfast in his opposition to Medicaid expansion, still faced the problem that the proposal was gaining popularity with the public and among some GOP legislative leaders. And despite two terms at lieutenant governor and one as governor, he still had squat for an alternative plan to help poor working Mississippians and struggling hospitals.
Reeves, just 47 days before the 2023 election, came up with a plan to help the hospitals (though his message for uninsured working folks has remained to get a better job with insurance). But he apparently also came to the conclusion that Medicaid and federal help is the only realistic game in town, so he enacted his own Medicaid expansion — expansion of payments to hospitals, and levying a tax on them to cover the state’s share.
Major hospital leaders were pleased with the proposal for them to get about $700 million more in Medicaid money. They appeared to back down on the push for expanded coverage to the working poor.
And since then, some legislative leaders say, hospitals are not coming out strong for the Medicaid expansion because they fear Reeves might taketh away — somehow rescind the increased payments to hospitals. But it would appear, under current state law and federal Medicaid approval for a “waiver” to allow the increased payments, the Reeves administration could not really do that without legislative approval.
Now, after Reeves’ reelection, the Republican-led state House has passed a Medicaid expansion bill. But the Senate, despite Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann having expressed openness to expansion for years, has hung fire. Some House and Senate leaders and others at the Capitol say the Senate is seeing an outbreak of FOT on expansion.
The Senate has let its own bill die without a vote, and despite saying it has its own plan forthcoming, it still has not been made public, despite deadlines and the end of the legislative session looming. Reeves has reportedly been threat—er—lobbying senators against expansion, and leaked details of the Senate’s draft plan show it’s pretty much a non-expansion expansion. It would leave hundreds of millions of federal dollars on the table, causing state taxpayers to pay more, and it would insure far fewer Mississippians than the House plan. If enacted, Mississippi would remain on the list of non-expansion states. Some experts and expansion advocates have said it’s likely unworkable and would not receive federal approval.
Now for the business lobby, which itself appears to have developed FOT on Medicaid expansion.
Back in July of 2021, Scott Waller, president of the Mississippi Economic Council — the state’s chamber of commerce — said business leaders were preparing to weigh in on Medicaid expansion, and soon.
He said MEC, which has about 11,000 members from 1,100 companies, would soon begin a research drive, including measuring public opinion and polling MEC business leaders on Medicaid expansion and other health care issues. He said he expected the group would take a position and make policy recommendations on expansion before the 2022 legislative session started, because “a healthy workforce is a vital component of moving our state and economy forward.”
But that didn’t happen then, and it still hasn’t happened.
MEC last week issued a social media statement, ostensibly on Medicaid expansion, that was so milquetoast and timid that many legislative leaders questioned what it meant.
“Providing healthcare for working Mississippians is vitally important. It remains MEC’s stated position that legislative leaders ‘find workable solutions and help shape a plan to increase access to healthcare for working Mississippians that explores all available options.’”
Asked for an explanation of what exactly this statement meant and whether MEC supports the expansion plan the House passed nearly a month earlier, Waller said the statement “stands for itself.” He said, “What was stated is the stated position of our board … that the Legislature find a solution.”
If Republican House leaders were hoping for business backing and cover for the bill they had passed nearly a month earlier, that wasn’t it. Just a vague tweet.
The Mississippi Manufacturers Association showed a little more backbone, and actually appeared to endorse the House plan.
“In late Feb., (Speaker) Jason White and the House passed Healthy MS Works, expanding healthcare access to 200,000 Mississippians,” the MMA statement said. “MMA supports improved access to quality healthcare, especially in rural areas, and efforts to promote a healthier workforce.”
But this wasn’t from a Capitol rally, with MMA members front and present on the rotunda steps to get lawmakers’ attention. It was a social media post on a Friday when most lawmakers had already gone home for the weekend.
To date, the most vocal support for expanding Medicaid coverage has come from the religious community, health advocates and doctors and nurses. Groups of preachers and doctors held rallies last week calling on lawmakers to help the Magnolia State’s working poor and uninsured. Mississippi’s American Cancer Society chapter has done yeoman’s work advocating for expansion, and appears to be the only group spending major resources on a public awareness campaign on TV and radio.
Some House members — and some Senate advocates of expansion — have lamented the lack of robust support from two powerful lobbies, whose members at times past have quietly lobbied them to accept the billions of federal dollars being offered, expand Medicaid and help create a healthier workforce.
But as lawmakers attempt to gather and hold a veto-proof majority for an expansion plan under the governor’s threats, FOT appears to be making that harder.
A focus of JXN Water’s new water bill rate structure, which went into effect on Feb. 1, was to reduce costs for low-income customers. But government concerns over violating Jacksonians’ privacy are holding up those discounts.
The new structure raises rates for most Jackson water customers, something city officials and water experts knew would have to happen in order to fund future maintenance and repairs. Even with $800 million in federal dollars coming to assist the water system, the city needs a stable stream of revenue to eventually move it from under the federal government’s control, as well as to pay for much-needed fixes to the also-failing sewer system.
For the 12,500 Jackson residents signed up for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, the new structure is designed to lower what they pay for water. But JXN Water hasn’t been able to give those customers the discount because it doesn’t know who is eligible. In the federal lawsuit overseeing the water system takeover, JXN Water filed a motion requesting the Mississippi Department of Human Services, which oversees the state’s SNAP program, to identify which water customers receive the benefit.
MDHS responded in a Feb. 22 letter that not only would doing so violate federal privacy rules, but also that the agency doesn’t have the capacity to take on an “unfunded mandate to assist in running (Jackson’s) water system.” As an alternative, the agency wrote, customers could instead volunteer their information to show they receive SNAP and get the water discount.
Attorney for JXN Water Paul Calamita responded during a status conference last month that going that route would dramatically decrease the number of people receiving the discount.
“When the customer has to do something to get a benefit, typically we would see like a 30-percent participation rate … there’s all sorts of reasons: People don’t trust the government, they are embarrassed, they don’t have time, they just don’t understand,” Calamita told Judge Henry Wingate.
JXN Water then filed a new motion asking the federal government to release the SNAP data, and on Tuesday the U.S. Department of Justice responded in opposition. The federal government does not have the SNAP data nor the authority to require MDHS to release the data, the DOJ wrote. Moreover, as MDHS argued, doing so would break laws protecting the privacy of SNAP recipients.
On Wednesday, JXN Water spokesperson Ameerah Palacios said that, for the time-being, customers looking for the SNAP discount will have to reach out to JXN Water and provide proof of their SNAP status.
When it presented the new structure in November, JXN Water estimated that most SNAP customers in Jackson would see a 31% decrease on their water bills under the new system.
Third-party manager for JXN Water Ted Henifin is also at odds with the Environmental Protection Agency. At Monday’s status conference, he criticized EPA for changing the way the agency is paying for federal funds for the city’s water repairs.
Initially, the EPA had sent large chunks of money to JXN Water for Henifin to draw down on and pay contractors doing work such as managing the treatment plants and fixing broken lines. But in the last couple months, the EPA chose to change the policy, and is now asking Henifin to first submit invoices for the work and get reimbursed afterwards.
In the last two status conferences, Henifin pushed back, arguing that the new system is extending how long it takes him to pay the contractors, and that his reputation is at risk as far as being able to pay them. Jackson he said, had already built a reputation in previous years of not being able to pay contractors on time. Henifin on Monday added that there are $10 million in current unpaid invoices.
The DOJ’s Karl Fingerhood, representing the federal government, said that while Henifin may want to pay contractors quicker, the invoices are still being fulfilled within the legally-required 30-day window. The DOJ added that the change came because the EPA had issues with how Henifin was submitting invoices, such as not tying them to specific deposits.
Wingate then sided with Henifin, calling the EPA policy change “unfortunate” and that there was no notice to the court before the switch happened. He also went after the agency for its delay in handling the Jackson sewer case, saying he was “amazed” by how little the EPA did between the 2013 consent decree and last year, when the case merged with the lawsuit over the city’s water system.
Later in Monday’s status conference, Wingate approved unopposed motions to allow groups representing Jackson community members — the People’s Advocacy Institute and the Mississippi Poor People’s Campaign — to be an official party in the water case. Last year, those groups were critical of JXN Water’s transparency, and asked Wingate for more involvement in Henifin’s decision-making, which the judge denied.
Brian Howey and Nate Rosenfield are examining the power of sheriffs’ offices in Mississippi as part of The Times’s Local Investigations Fellowship.
Sentencing hearings this week for six law enforcement officers, some of whom were members of the Goon Squad, revealed a disturbing portrait of a Mississippi sheriff’s department that encouraged deputies to use extreme violence as a policing tool.
Prosecutors, along with several of the deputies who were sentenced, described a toxic culture in which senior officers directed the men they oversaw to humiliate and torture people suspected of crimes.
Young deputies said they saw violence as a way to earn promotions and to live up to the expectations of their supervisors, who were considered heroes of the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department.
In court this week, Christian Dedmon, a former narcotics detective, said that a culture of misconduct reigned at the sheriff’s office and that he rose through the ranks at the department because of his willingness “to do bad things.”
Mr. Dedmon and five other former law enforcement officers from Rankin County were sentenced this week to prison terms for federal civil rights violations stemming from the torture and sexual assault of two Black men, Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker, in January 2023.
The officers, who pleaded guilty last summer, shocked both men with Tasers and abused them with a sex toy. During what was described as a mock execution, one of the officers shot Mr. Jenkins in the mouth, nearly killing him.
Three of the deputies were also sentenced for their roles in the beating of Alan Schmidt in December 2022, when Mr. Dedmon shocked Mr. Schmidt with a Taser, and then pressed his genitals against the man’s face and bare buttocks while he was handcuffed.
Brett McAlpin in Rankin County Circuit Court in Brandon, Miss., last year.Credit…Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
Judge Tom Lee of U.S. District Court sentenced the last of the officers Thursday. Brett McAlpin, a senior detective who has been described as the Goon Squad’s ringleader, was sentenced to more than 27 years in prison. Joshua Hartfield, a narcotics detective for the Richland Police Department, received a 10-year sentence.
An investigation by Mississippi Today and The New York Times last year exposed a decades-long reign of terror by nearly two dozen Rankin County deputies, several of them high-ranking investigators who reported directly to the Rankin County Sheriff, Bryan Bailey.
In pursuit of drug arrests, the deputies shoved a stick down one man’s throat until he vomited, dripped molten metal onto another man’s skin and held people down and beat them until they were bloody and bruised, according to dozens who said they had witnessed or experienced the raids.
Residents in impoverished communities in Rankin County have complained that deputies targeted them for years, routinely barging into homes without warrants and violently shaking them down for information on drug use.
Testimony at the hearings this week shed new light on why the violence had been so widespread.
Christopher Perras, a federal prosecutor, said Thursday that Mr. McAlpin had been involved in at least nine incidents over the past five years in which the detective led deputies in “brutalizing people with impunity.”
Mr. Perras said Mr. McAlpin, the former chief investigator, had forced younger deputies “to do his dirty work for him.”
“McAlpin is the one who molded these men into what they became,” Mr. Perras said. “He modeled that behavior for young impressionable officers, and it’s no wonder that they followed his lead.”
Jeremy Travis Paige, a local resident, told reporters last year that he was one of Mr. McAlpin’s many victims. During a 2018 raid of his home in Pearl, Miss., deputies led by Mr. McAlpin waterboarded and beat Mr. Paige until his face was blackened and bloodied. Throughout the encounter, he said, Mr. McAlpin instructed deputies to carry out the attack.
“He was the captain, and they were the hit men,” he said Thursday. “He just sat in the chair and watched them do everything.”
Mr. Paige was one of many people who said they filed federal lawsuits, submitted formal complaints or tried to contact Sheriff Bailey directly to complain about Mr. McAlpin and other deputies’ behavior. He was also one of multiple people who arrived to jail with obvious injuries, according to booking photos obtained by The Times and Mississippi Today.
Jeremy Travis Paige’s booking photo, taken at the Rankin County jail in 2018, shows his battered and bruised face after an encounter with the deputies. Credit: Rankin County Sheriff’s Department
Jeffery Reynolds, a lawyer representing Daniel Opdyke, a former patrol deputy who was sentenced to almost 18 years in prison, said his client viewed Mr. McAlpin as a father figure and followed him “right or wrong, without question.” But while complaints about Mr. McAlpin continued to surface, Mr. Reynolds said, Sheriff Bailey kept promoting him.
“Where’s the true leadership? Why aren’t they in this court?” Mr. Reynolds said.
Sheriff Bailey, who did not attend the sentencing hearings, has repeatedly denied knowledge of his deputies’ actions. But policing experts said the details revealed at the hearings cast further doubt on his claims.
“There were so many red flags in this case, it seems unbelievable to think that higher-ups didn’t have some knowledge of this,” said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum. “Officers were held accountable for these egregious crimes, but it should not have taken 20 years.”
The governing board of Mississippi’s public universities gave Alcorn State University’s interim president the full appointment on Thursday, forgoing a national search and marking the ninth time in 10 years the board has hired an internal candidate as a top leader.
In a press release, the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees cited the campus support for Tracy Cook that was shared during listening sessions earlier this year as a reason for his appointment. The board did not hire a search firm, IHL confirmed to Mississippi Today.
Cook had been the university’s interim president since June 2023, and his full appointment will be effective April 1, according to IHL’s press release. He steps into the role at a time when some on Alcorn State’s campus feel the country’s oldest public historical Black land-grant institution has strayed from its heyday.
“There was an obvious desire and call from the Alcorn family for Dr. Cook to be named to this role, and we are putting our full faith and confidence behind this decision,” Dr. Alfred McNair, the trustee who is serving as board president, said in a press release. “He is the right person to lead Alcorn State University.”
IHL could not say what Cook’s salary will be, but his salary as interim president was set at $300,000 last year.
An Alcorn State alumnus, Cook spent most of his career in K-12 education, working in various administrative levels in Jefferson and Claiborne county schools. He came to Alcorn State in 2015 to be the chief of staff when Alfred Rankins, the current IHL commissioner, was serving as the university’s president, Mississippi Today previously reported.
Rankins’ applauded the board’s decision.
“At this juncture in Alcorn’s history, Dr. Cook is the right choice to lead the university to greater prominence,” Rankins said in a press release. “I understand and appreciate the work that lies ahead for him. Alcorn State University is fortunate to have him at the helm.”
After working for Rankins, Cook was promoted to vice president for student affairs in 2019. He also oversaw enrollment management. From fall 2019 to fall 2023, total enrollment at Alcorn State has fallen from 3,523 to 2,894, according to IHL and federal data.
“I am honored to have the trust and support of the Board of Trustees, and excited to officially lead a university that has meant so much to me personally and professionally,” Cook said in a press release. “We have a bright future ahead of us and I am committed to leading us all toward new levels of success.”
IHL is constitutionally empowered to hire the university presidents, and board policies give the 12 trustees immense flexibility in making that decision. In 2022, IHL suspended its search to hire Joe Paul, then the interim president at the University of Southern Mississippi, after he received support during the listening sessions.
And just last year, the board named its deputy commissioner, Marcus Thompson, as president of Jackson State University despite conducting a full-fledged national search.
Brian Howey and Nate Rosenfield are examining the power of sheriffs’ offices in Mississippi as part of The Times’s Local Investigations Fellowship.
A federal judge handed down sentences Thursday to a high-ranking Rankin County deputy prosecutors say was the ringleader of the notorious “Goon Squad” and a local police detective associated with the crew for their roles in the torture and sexual assault of two Black men last year.
Judge Tom Leeof US District Court sentenced former Rankin County chief investigator Brett McAlpin to more than 27 years behind bars.
Former Rankin County law enforcement officer Brett McAlpin, enters Rankin County Circuit Court where he pled guilty to all charges before Judge Steve Ratcliff, Monday, Aug. 14, 2023 in Brandon. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
“McAlpin is the one who molded these men into what they became,” federal prosecutor Christopher Perras said during the hearing. “He modeled that behavior for young impressionable officers, and it’s no wonder that they followed his lead.”
Former Richland Police Department detective Joshua Hartfield also received a 10-year sentence Thursday. Hartfield was the only officer who participated in the violent raid who did not work for the sheriff’s department.
The sentencing is the latest chapter in a saga that has rocked the quiet suburban county near Jackson.
A Justice Department investigation found that McAlpin, Hartfield, and former deputies Jeffrey Middleton, Christian Dedmon, Hunter Elward and Daniel Opdyke handcuffed, beat and shocked Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker with Tasers during a warrantless raid of Parker’s home in January, 2023.
In a separate incident in December 2022, Dedmon, joined by Elward and Opdyke, shocked Alan Schmidt repeatedly with Tasers before sexually assaulting the man while he was handcuffed.
These incidents were not isolated, prosecutors and the deputies revealed during the hearings this week. In at least nine incidents over the last five years, Perras said McAlpin brutalized people during arrests.
He earned a reputation for training young deputies to mimic his violent tactics, building the Goon Squad from the ground up.
“He didn’t sit at a desk, he beat people. He forced confessions,” Perras said. “If you wanted to advance at the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department, you had to be like Brett McAlpin.”
Hartfield received the shortest sentence of all the involved officers. Of the four others, Dedmon received the stiffest sentence, 40 years; Elward, 20 years; and Opdyke and Middleton, each almost 18 years.
Because he was not a known member of the Goon Squad and was less involved in the torture of Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Parker, Judge Lee said he looked at Hartfield differently and was conflicted about how to sentence him.
“You had no knowledge at the outset of what was planned or likely to occur at the home,” he said. “You were the least involved and the least culpable.”
All of the defendants were ordered to collectively pay $79,000 in restitution to the three victims.
Local activists and attorneys for Jenkins and Parker said the problem is much deeper than just these six officers, and other deputies deserve to be prosecuted for their roles in the abuse.
“This happened over and over again,” attorney Trent Walker said. “It wasn’t the first time they did it, it was the first time they got caught.”
Last year, Mississippi Today and The New York Times exposed a decades-long reign of terror by nearly two dozen Rankin County deputies.
More than 50 people say they witnessed or experienced torture and warrantless raids at the hands of deputies, most of whom have not been charged with a crime.
The Rankin County District Attorney’s Office recently confirmed it is reviewing and dismissing criminal cases involving Goon Squad members, but District Attorney Bubba Bramlett has so far declined to share which cases have been dismissed or how far back in time his review will go.
Several months after the publications released their findings, state lawmakers introduced a bill that would expand oversight over Mississippi law enforcement, allowing the state board that certifies officers to investigate and revoke the licenses of officers accused of misconduct, regardless of whether they are criminally charged.
Several dozen doctors and health care leaders gathered at the Capitol Thursday to advocate for Medicaid expansion and call on Senate leaders – who have remained quiet on the House expansion bill that sits in their chamber – to close the state’s health care coverage gap.
“I’m calling on the Senate to do right and to come up with a mechanism by which these people can have coverage,” Dr. Randy Easterling, former president of the Mississippi State Medical Association, said.
Easterling recounted the story of one working Mississippian named Jimmy who delayed seeking treatment and was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a type of cancer. He is now on hospice and “probably has two to three weeks to live,” Easterling said.
Easterling’s relative, an insured Tennessean, was diagnosed with the same condition as Jimmy. He received state of the art care in Nashville for his condition, which is treatable in most cases.
“I wish I could tell you that my story about Jimmy was an exception, but it’s not,” Easterling said. “Everybody behind me can tell their own stories about the hundreds and hundreds of people that we’ve seen over our practice time that this has happened to … What makes my relative more deserving than Jimmy? We need to do better.”
Since the Senate let its own Medicaid bill — which was a “dummy” with no details — die, the House measure is the only expansion bill still alive this session. The House bill would increase Medicaid eligibility to Mississippians making up to 138% of the federal poverty level, about $20,000 annually for an individual. The bill, authored by Missy McGee, R-Hattiesburg, and Speaker Jason White, R-West, contains a work requirement for enrollees, but states that the expansion would go into effect even if the federal government does not approve the work requirement.
It would expand Medicaid only to working Mississippians making up to 99% of the federal poverty level, about $15,000 annually for an individual. The plan, which Medicaid Chair Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven, has referred to as “expansion light,” would be entirely contingent on a work requirement being approved by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
That’s unlikely to happen under the Biden administration, which has rescinded work requirements previously approved for other states during the Trump administration and has not approved new ones. If the federal government denies the waiver, Mississippi would have to wait until a new administration took office, or sue the Biden administration. Georgia remains in litigation with the federal government over the work requirement issue, and has suffered low enrollment and missed out on millions in federal funds by not fully expanding coverage.
The Senate proposal has not been released to the public yet. Blackwell declined to comment on the substance of the plan, but stressed to Mississippi Today that he and Senate leaders are still tweaking parts of the legislation.
The Senate has until April 2 to pass the bill through Blackwell’s Medicaid committee and until April 10 to bring it to a floor vote.
Dr. Randy Easterling, Medical Director at Harbor House, is joined by physicians from across the state, endorsing Medicaid expansion and closing the gap in health care coverage during a press conference held at the State Capitol, Thursday, March 21, 2024 in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
It’s estimated that traditional Medicaid expansion would insure roughly 123,000 uninsured Mississippians. Currently, a Mississippian must have children and be making less than 28% of the federal poverty level to qualify for Medicaid coverage. For a family of two, such as a single mother and her child, 28% of the federal poverty level would be about $5,700 a year.
Tens of thousands of working Mississippians fall into the “coverage gap,” making more than 28% of the federal poverty level, but not enough to receive subsidies that would make private health insurance affordable.
In addition to insuring more Mississippians, expansion would also reduce the risk of rural hospital closure by 62%, according to a report by The Chartis Center for Rural Health.
Right now, Mississippi hospitals lose hundreds of millions of dollars a year in uncompensated care costs, or money spent treating uninsured patients. That directly impacts the financial health of hospitals, with one report putting almost half of Mississippi’s rural hospitals at risk of closure.
“It’s a tremendous burden on the health system,” said Dr. Claude Brunson, an anesthesiologist and the association’s executive director. “The whole system depends on us being able to take care of people, and we fund that through people on insurance. And when you go out to the rural areas of our state, there are a lot of people with no insurance but they need care. And they could have insurance, and that would help stabilize those hospitals there, those practices there, so that we can keep them open. If we can keep the hospitals open, we can actually see those patients in their hometowns, in their communities, and that’ll give us the ability to improve the health of Mississippi.”
At least four people have died in suspected domestic violence crimes across the state since the Legislature has been meeting and failing to advance measures to help stem the violence and support survivors.
At the end of January, a Canton man shot and killed his wife. In February, Tupelo police responding to a domestic incident shot and killed a man who threatened another person with a gun. This month, a woman was found dead at a Stone County store, and the man suspected of killing her shot at a sheriff’s deputy before dying from a self-inflicted gunshot.
The number of domestic violence fatalities could be higher, but it’s impossible to know because of a lack of data, advocates say.
“We don’t even have accurate data in the state to show a true picture of what domestic violence looks like,” said Stacey Riley, CEO of the Gulf Coast Center for Nonviolence Inc. in Biloxi, which operates two shelters and serves six counties.
House Bill 842 would have established a multi-agency, statewide board to review suspected domestic violence fatalities and suicides, and the board would have collected that data and used it to make recommendations to the Legislature about proactive measures to decrease the deaths.
When a domestic violence fatality occurs anywhere in the state, it’s often categorized as a homicide, Riley said. Typically, it’s news stories that report whether domestic violence was involved, she said.
The Mississippi Coalition Against Domestic Violence championed the legislation and lawmakers from both parties have supported the bill, but it did not make it out of the House’s Judiciary B Committee.
“One is too many,” Rep. Fabian Nelson, D-Byram, one of the bill co-sponsors, said about domestic violence deaths.
Several other bills relating to domestic violence and abuse also did not advance this session including:
House Bill 252 by Rep. John Hines Sr., D-Greenville, would have required school districts to adopt curriculum about dating violence and healthy relationships.
House Bill 435 by Hines would have established domestic abuse courts in every county. Hines has introduced this legislation for over a decade.
House Bill 800 by Rep. Oscar Denton, D-Vicksburg, would have allowed chancery courts to issue temporary domestic abuse protection orders. Currently, these orders are issued by the justice or municipal court.
Luis Montgomery, public policy and compliance specialist for MCADV, said the organization plans to work with lawmakers next session to reintroduce the review board legislation.
He said the bill’s failure to advance was a technical issue. The original draft of the bill had the review board under the state medical examiner’s office. After learning that office couldn’t house the board, an effort was made to revise the bill to place the board under the state Department of Health, but by that time the committee deadline passed, Montgomery said.
Riley and others who work with domestic violence survivors said they are disappointed that the review board won’t become law this year, but they are hopeful it will in the future. In the meantime, they say domestic violence remains an issue in need of attention.
Rebecca Stewart, executive director of The Domestic Abuse Family Shelter Inc. based in Laurel which serves 11 counties, said data can provide valuable insight. It would allow the group to examine events that led up to a fatality and know about gaps in response, which can help with intervention efforts.
She hopes the Legislature will take a more in-depth look at domestic violence and lawmakers will ask questions to understand more about the issue and what can be done about it.
“I encourage them to really ask their constituents what do you want to see because there are a lot of people out there who are survivors of domestic violence, vicitms of sexual assault,” Stewart said. “We wouldn’t ask for something (the review board) if it wasn’t important.”
