DOJ opens civil rights probe of Rankin Co. Sheriff’s Dept. after torture of two Black men last year

DOJ opens civil rights probe of Rankin Co. Sheriff’s Dept. after torture of two Black men last year

Georgia physician panel finds two women have died due to anti-abortion laws.

The Department of Justice is investigating whether the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department has tolerated rampant racial discrimination within its ranks, leading to major civil rights violations.

Last year, six officers (five of whom were Rankin County deputies) tortured two Black men in a house for hours. The incident involved beatings, assault with a sex toy, and culminated in one of the men being shot in the mouth. All six officers, who had dubbed themselves the Goon Squad, were sentenced in federal court in March this year, receiving sentences of 10 to 40 years.

The crime occurred after one of the officers received a complaint from a white resident that one of the Black men was living with a white woman. The woman in question was a childhood friend of the man. She had been left paralyzed as a result of an accident as a teenager, and the man was caring for her.

More disturbing revelations

That incident led to further scrutiny of the past violent behavior of some of these officers. These include at least four other violent incidents since 2019 that left two Black men dead.

The DOJ also has received reports of Rankin County deputies routinely overusing stun guns, invading homes, and using racial slurs and physical violence against those in their custody. Texts between Goon Squad members and other deputies show that they “routinely discussed extreme, unnecessary uses of force and other ways to dehumanize residents of Rankin county”.

Attorneys Malik Shabazz and Trent Walker, who represented the two men victimized by the Goon Squad in last year’s incident, welcomed the news of the DOJ investigation. “This is a first, critical step in cleaning up the sheriff’s department and holding Rankin County legally accountable for the years of constitutional violations against its citizenry,” their statement read. “All of this took place because, despite innumerable warnings, Rankin County and Sheriff [Bryan] Bailey belligerently refused to properly monitor and supervise this rogue department”.

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Two Georgia women have died due to anti-abortion laws

Following the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court in 2022, countless physicians and women’s health advocates warned state legislators that overly-restrictive and poorly-conceived laws regarding abortion would inevitably lead to worse health outcomes for women, including death.

There have been numerous horror stories from states across the country of women and girls being denied or forced to delay abortion care despite having been raped, or suffering life-threatening complications during pregnancy. However, until now, there have been no confirmed cases in the US of women dying due to being denied timely life-saving care.

This week, two such cases have come to light from the state of Georgia, where abortions are banned after 6 weeks. Both of these cases are from 2022, but have only just been fully reviewed a state committee, which includes 10 physicians. These cases take time to evaluate, and there are almost certainly other cases out there that have not yet become public knowledge. In both cases, the physicians concluded that these women’s deaths were preventable and were directly attributable to Georgia’s anti-abortion legislation.

Amber Thurman

In 2022, just weeks after Georgia’s restrictive laws went into effect, Amber Thurman, a 26-year-old medical assistant and single mother of a 6-year-old son, discovered she was pregnant with twins. Thurman had only recently achieved some financial stability for herself and her son, and made the decision to terminate the pregnancy.

This was far from easy. Thurman was 8-weeks pregnant, just beyond the cut-off point in Georgia. So she and a friend made the 4-hour drive to a clinic in North Carolina. However, they got stuck in traffic along the way, and the clinic could not hold Thurman’s appointment for a surgical procedure, as they were inundated by out-of-state patients. When she arrived at the clinic, she learned that she was eligible for the abortion pill protocol. This involves a dose of mifepristone to terminate the pregnancy, and misoprostol to expel the tissue from the uterus.

The clinician did not expect any complications. From 2000 (when the protocol was first approved) up to 2022, over 6 million women used abortion pills to terminate a pregnancy. Only 32 deaths followed use of these pills, and the majority of those deaths were attributable to causes other than the treatment.

The clinician told Thurman that if there was any problem, she should seek immediate medical attention. Ms. Thurman took the pills as instructed. Unfortunately, the treatment failed to expel all the fetal tissue from her uterus. She experienced days of pain and became septic.

Ms. Thurman went to Piedmont Henry Hospital in Stockbridge, GA, seeking a dilation and curettage treatment, otherwise known as a D&C. This is a routine procedure performed to ensure all fetal tissue is removed after women suffer miscarriages. However, Georgia’s anti-abortion legislation had banned the procedure except in very specific circumstances. One of the few exceptions is to preserve “the life of the mother”. This is a non-scientific standard, and despite calls from physicians, Republican legislators in Georgia and other states have refused to change the wording of their legislation to reflect medical realities. This would allow physicians to intervene more quickly without fear of prosecution.

Apparently unsure how to proceed, physicians at Piedmont Henry delayed performing the procedure for more than 20 hours as Ms. Thurman suffered in her hospital bed. It seems they were waiting for her condition to deteriorate to the point where she was literally at death’s door. By the time physicians decided to move ahead with Ms. Thurman’s D&C, it was too late. Her bewildered and devastated mother was left only with her daughter’s last words, “Promise me you’ll take care of my son”.

Candi Miller

Candi Miller, a 41-year-old mother of three, suffered from lupus, diabetes and hypertension. Her doctor had warned her against having more children, due to potential life-threatening complications from her chronic conditions.

In the fall of 2022, Miss Miller learned that she was pregnant. Fearful of the state’s new abortion ban, she elected to manage an abortion at home, again using the abortion pill protocol. Like Ms. Thurman, Ms. Miller was unfortunate enough to suffer rare complications in the aftermath as her fetal tissue also failed to be fully expelled.

As in Ms. Thurman’s case, a timely D&C would have saved Candi’s life. However, because of her fear of seeking treatment due to the new laws in Georgia, she stayed at home in stayed. For days, she suffered horrendous pain and advancing sepsis as her family looked on. Days later, her husband found her unresponsive in her bed, with her 3-year-old daughter by her side. Ms. Miller had passed away.

An autopsy discovered the unexpelled fetal tissue, as well as a lethal combination of painkillers in Miller’s system. She had no history of drug use, and it is unclear whether she took the pills in a desperate bid to end her pain, or to end her life.

Click here to read more about Amber Thurman’s story (opens in new tab).

Click here to read more about Candi Miller’s story (opens in new tab).