A Mississippi police officer currently serving a 40-year sentence after he pleaded guilty to torturing Black men is now subject to a lawsuit alleging that he used a dog to torture a suspect.
In March, former narcotics officer Christian Dedmon,29, was sentenced to decades in federal prison for his role in the notorious Rankin County Sheriff's Office Goon Squad. Dedmon and five other officers broke into the home of two Black men, arrested them without probable cause, called them racial slurs, tortured them and discharged a gun into one of the victims' mouths.
On April 30, Dedmon was listed alongside Sheriff Bryan Bailey and others as a defendant in a lawsuit filed on behalf of Bobbie Adams. The plaintiff alleges that in 2021 there was a meth sale set up between him and a confidential informant.
Adams alleges that after purchasing the meth, he briefly ran away before giving himself up to a group of six deputies. The plaintiff says that he was already handcuffed and "subdued" on the ground when the officers allowed a dog named Voodoo to attack.
"The dog began to attack the handcuffed and compliant plaintiff, biting and chewing upon the plaintiff's feet and legs repeatedly," the lawsuit read. "Aside from numerous substantial, full-thickness puncture wounds inflicted by the dog's bites, the dog also crushed and dislocated numerous bones in the plaintiff's left foot."
Dedmon, however, alleged in his incident report that Voodoo tracked Adams down and found him eating meth. The narcotics officer further alleged that Adams kicked Voodoo, which led to the dog biting him, WAPT reported.
Another unnamed defendant gave medical personnel a third version of the story, when they arrived to treat Adams. The defendant claimed that Adams fell while fleeing from the sheriff's deputies and that Voodoo assisted in apprehending him.
In the lawsuit, Adams' attorney argues that the sheriff's deputies violated his Fourth Amendment rights and conspired to violate his civil rights. The case has not yet been assigned to a federal judge.
