A WhatsApp group chat used by the Mississippi sheriff’s deputies who dubbed themselves the “Goon Squad” shows members swapping pictures of corpses, making racist comments, and encouraging each other to brutalize suspects, reports say. Several members of the Goon Squad in the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office were sentenced earlier this year for their part in torturing two Black men in January 2023. According to The New York Times and Mississippi Today, messages from a WhatsApp group used by Goon Squad deputies shows the participants making racist remarks about Mexicans, discussing taking nude pictures of a woman who’d been arrested, and urging one another to “shock people’s private parts with Tasers.” One person in the group also reportedly shared a video that showed a deputy defecating on a bed, while others allegedly traded pictures of rotting bodies and joked they should have sex with them. Some deputies included in the group have not been accused of wrongdoing, and at least nine people in the chat still work at the department, according to the Times.
