Rankin deputy who punched and broke inmate’s jaw gets a new role protecting schools

By Mukta Joshi | Originally published by Mississippi Today

Mukta Joshi is an investigative reporter at Mississippi Today. She is spending a year as a New York Times Local Investigations fellow examining immigration and criminal justice issues. She can be reached at mukta.joshi@nytimes.com.

A Rankin County jail guard who was caught on camera in 2022 punching an inmate and breaking his jaw will now police schoolchildren in the county. 

In a Facebook post Tuesday, the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department shared that Jordan McQueary, the former guard, had been assigned as a school resource officer, and congratulated him on completing his law enforcement training. 

In a video that surfaced in January, McQueary can be seen lunging and punching an inmate in the face, knocking him to the ground, after a verbal altercation. The inmate, Dustin Rives, suffered a fractured jaw and developed a deep infection during the following month, ultimately requiring surgery. 

In his incident report, McQueary quoted Rives as saying to a female guard, “Shut up, bitch, before I punch you in the face.” Rives said he did use that language, but said it was directed at the male trusty who accompanied the guards, not the female guard. 

“Before inmate Rives could do anything kind of harm to another officer, I struck him and placed him on the ground,” McQueary wrote. 

David Fathi, director of the National Prison Project at the American Civil Liberties Union who reviewed the incident for Mississippi Today, said punching a detainee could only be justified in self-defense, which was not the case according to McQueary’s own report.

Jason Dare, attorney for the sheriff’s department, said, “The single slap in response to Rives (1) calling a female jailer a “b****”, (2) threatened to punch her,  then (3) raising his right fist to follow through with his threats, appears permissible under Fourteenth Amendment standards.” 

About a minute and a half after McQueary punched Rives, McQueary can be seen escorting the inmate away with his hands behind his back, pants pulled down and genitals exposed. “I was begging them to pull up my pants,” Rives wrote in his 2022 complaint to the department. “They laughed and said they wouldn’t.”

Rives was one of at least nine jail inmates who filed complaints or federal lawsuits alleging that McQueary had assaulted them. As is true for other lawsuits against the department, most were filed by inmates themselves, without lawyers, and nearly all were dismissed. 

Dare said none of the pro se claims filed against McQueary resulted in a finding of impropriety against him.

A supervisor closed Rives’ complaint three days after he filed it, and Rives said he never heard from the department again. 

The supervisor wrote that the department had provided a “satisfactory response,” involving scheduling a medical appointment and informing Rives that he had a right to press charges against McQueary after he was released. The supervisor’s report did not indicate whether McQueary was questioned or disciplined about the incident. 

Mississippi Today and The New York Times had previously uncovered allegations of widespread violence in the jail and a culture of brutality condoned and encouraged by top officials.

In 2024, the sheriff’s department honored McQueary for his “outstanding” work in the jail. 

“School resource officers protect children from violence. So the question is — would parents, children, teachers, and/or faculty feel safe with Deputy McQueary protecting their school?“ Dare said. “Based on the totality of unmanipulated facts, Deputy McQueary appears capable of protecting a school and helping to maintain a safe, secure learning environment.”

McQueary did not respond to a request for comment. 

This article was originally published by Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Source: Original Article