14 Current And Former Mississippi Cops Federally Indicted For Allegedly Taking Bribes From Drug Traffickers

In today’s episode of The Police Be Lying, And Here’s Your Proof, on Thursday, federal authorities indicted  20 people, including 14 current or former Mississippi Delta law enforcement officers, who stand accused of taking bribes to provide safe passage to people they believed were drug traffickers.

According to Fox 13, the indictments came following an investigation that spanned multiple years and multiple counties in the Mississippi Delta region of Mississippi and Tennessee, and centered largely around two Mississippi sheriffs, Washington County Sheriff Milton Gaston and Humphreys County Sheriff Bruce Williams.

From Fox 13:

The indictments say law enforcement officers provided armed escort services on multiple occasions to an FBI agent posing as a member of a Mexican drug cartel. The indictments allege the officers understood they were helping to transport 25 kilograms (55 pounds) of cocaine through Mississippi Delta counties and into Memphis. Some of the officers also provided escort services to protect the transportation of drug proceeds.

Gaston and Williams are alleged to have received bribes in exchange for giving the operations their “blessing,” one indictment said. It also alleged that Gaston attempted to disguise the payments as campaign contributions, but did not report them as required by law.

In addition to the two sheriffs, those charged include: Brandon Addison, Javery Howard, Truron Grayson, Sean Williams, Dexture Franklin, Wendell Johnson, Marcus Nolan, Aasahn Roach, Jeremy Sallis, Torio Chaz Wiseman, Pierre Lakes, Derrik Wallace, Marquivious Bankhead, Chaka Gaines, Martavis Moore, Jamario Sanford, Marvin Flowers and Dequarian Smith.

Yeah — it’s going to be pretty difficult for “back the blue” bootlickers to apply their “a few bad apples” narrative to a story in which an entire orchard appears to be rotten to the core. Mississippi probably hasn’t seen a police scandal this big since six of its officers pleaded guilty to torturing and sexually assaulting two Black men after the “goon squad” got word that they were living with a white woman.

Anyway, according to the feds, the investigation into the alleged mass bribery scheme began when people who had been arrested complained about having to pay bribes to various officers, some of which were as large as $20,000 and $37,000. Imagine getting indicted because the drug dealers you were taxing for safe passage — who, somehow, ended up in jail anyway — thought you were being too greedy.

“It’s just a monumental betrayal of public trust,” U.S. Attorney Clay Joyner said.

Robert Eikhoff, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Jackson Field Office, shared similar sentiments.

“Law enforcement is only effective when the community they protect can trust the law enforcement officers are honestly serving the community’s interests,” Eikhoff said. “This type of corruption strikes at the heart of the community.”

But, apparently, this isn’t the first “betrayal” of its kind, not even in recent years.

In fact, just last year, former Hinds County Sheriff Marshand Crisler was convicted of accepting $9,500 in bribes and knowingly providing ammunition to a convicted felon. In 2019, former Tallahatchie County Sheriff William Brewer earned himself six years in prison for extorting bribes from a drug dealer.

On a different note, last year, former Noxubee County Sheriff Terry Grassaree pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI while being interrogated over allegations that he solicited and received nude photos from a female inmate at a jail he was supervising, and gave her preferential treatment in exchange for those nudes.

It’s also worth mentioning that the aforementioned case involving the ex-cops who went all lynch-happy on two Black men prompted a Department of Justice investigation into the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office, and a similar DOJ investigation concluded last year that officers of the Lexington Police Department regularly discriminated against Black people.

So, sure, incidents involving corrupt, lying cops certainly constitute a betrayal of public trust, but one might feel at least a little less betrayed if they weren’t already accustomed to not trusting cops due to their tendency to be corrupt liars.

Just sayin’.

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