Feds open civil rights probe after deputies shoot Black man

By MICHAEL GOLDBERG
Associated Press/Report for America

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The Justice Department says it has opened a civil rights investigation after a Black man in Mississippi spent three weeks hospitalized after being shot during a drug raid by sheriff’s deputies. Attorneys for the family of Michael Corey Jenkins told a news conference Wednesday he was critically injured by Rankin County deputies who beat Jenkins and shot him in the mouth on Jan. 24. Officials say the deputies were conducting a narcotics investigation when they entered a private home. The Justice Department released a statement saying its civil rights division is investigating the sheriff’s office alongside local FBI agents and federal prosecutors. The sheriff’s office gave few details of the shooting but said Jenkins was charged with assaulting an officer and drug possession.