SENTENCING continued today for white former police officers in Mississippi in the United States who pleaded guilty last year to breaking into a home without a warrant and torturing two black men.

Daniel Opdyke and Christian Dedmon were set to appear separately before US District Judge Tom Lee where they face lengthy prison terms.

On Tuesday, Mr Lee gave a nearly 20-year prison sentence to Hunter Elward and a 17.5-year sentence to Jeffrey Middleton. 

They, like Mr Opdyke and Mr Dedmon, worked as Rankin County sheriff's deputies during the attack.

Another former deputy, Brett McAlpin, and a former Richland police officer, Joshua Hartfield, are due to be sentenced tomorrow.

The former officers admitted months ago that they tortured Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker. 

Mr Elward admitted to shoving a gun into Mr Jenkins’s mouth and firing in a “mock execution” that went awry.

In a statement Tuesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland condemned the “heinous attack on citizens they had sworn an oath to protect.”

Before Judge Lee sentenced Mr Elward and Mr Middleton, he called their actions “egregious and despicable.”

The terror began January 24 2023, with a racist call for extrajudicial violence when a white person in Rankin County complained to Mr McAlpin that two black men were staying with a white woman at a house in Braxton. 

Once inside, they handcuffed Mr Jenkins and his friend Mr Parker and poured milk, alcohol and chocolate syrup over their faces. They mocked the victims with racial slurs and shocked them with stun guns. 

Mr Dedmon assaulted them with a sex toy.

After Mr Elward shot Mr Jenkins in the mouth, the officers devised a cover up that included planting drugs and a gun — the charges for which stood against the two for months. 

The two have filed a $400 million (around £314 million) civil case against the Rankin County police department.