Exclusive documents confirm no body camera footage exists of Rankin Co. deputies shooting man in January
Last body camera recording occurred nearly two hours before Michael Corey Jenkins would be shot, logs show
RANKIN COUNTY, Miss. (WLBT) - No video evidence exists of the January encounter between Rankin County deputies that lawyers allege led to torturing, tasing, and the unprovoked shooting of a man, according to exclusive documents obtained by 3 On Your Side.
The incident took place on January 24 at a home in Braxton.
Body camera logs reveal that Deputy Napoleon Valino activated his camera at 9:41 p.m., two hours before another deputy shot Michael Corey Jenkins in the mouth.
The next recording took place at 1:25 a.m., with Deputy Hunter Lewis activating his camera for nearly 20 minutes.
It’s unclear whether Valino or Lewis was one of the deputies who originally responded to that scene.
The documents show a gap of three and a half hours where no footage was recorded.
Jenkins’ lawyers allege deputies waterboarded Jenkins with milk and threatened him for several minutes, with one deputy shoving a gun in Jenkins’ mouth.
The deputy fired, leaving Jenkins disfigured and injured as a result.
Those allegations triggered a federal civil rights investigation last month into the deputies’ behavior.
New evidence by the Associated Press Monday links several of the same deputies from the Jenkins encounter to three other incidents involving Black men over the last four years through court documents and public records.
The first incident, stemming from a standoff in February 2019, ended when a deputy claimed Pierre Woods pointed a gun at him.
Deputies shot and killed him.
That same year, Carvis Johnson alleged a deputy placed a gun in his mouth during a drug bust but did not pull the trigger.
That revelation came out in federal court filings a year afterward.
Two years later, Damien Cameron died after being arrested by deputies.
A witness said they saw a deputy kneel on Cameron’s neck before he died.
The AP also found many of those deputies were part of the sheriff’s Special Response Team.
3 On Your Side reached out to the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office repeatedly to respond to our findings and the results from the AP investigation.
Capt. Paul Holley said Sheriff Bryan Bailey chose to stand by his previous statement, released weeks ago when news of the federal investigation first became public.
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