Attorneys Trent Walker and Malik Shabazz, with Black Lawyers for Justice, spoke to reporters on Monday in response to the U.S. Department of Justice’s civil rights investigation. They said they are pleased with this first step that they said is necessary to hold the department accountable.

Attorneys for the two Black men, who were tortured in a racist attack that included beatings, repeated use of stun guns and assaults with a sex toy before one of the victims was shot in the mouth, responded to the Justice Department’s investigation into the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office.

The Justice Department will determine if allegations of widespread violence and improper searches amount to a pattern of discrimination in the department.

The Justice Department has launched a civil rights investigation into the sheriff’s department in Mississippi’s Rankin County after several of its deputies – including some who were in a self-styled “Goon Squad” – abused and tortured two Black men in a racially charged home raid last year.

"Put simply, the concerns about the Rankin County Sheriff's Department did not end with the demise of the Goon Squad."

The racist attack included beatings, repeated use of stun guns and assaults with a sex toy before one of the victims was shot in the mouth, officials said.

Nearly two years after Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker survived hours of a sadistic torture plot conjured up by six white former Mississippi law enforcement officers, the U.S. Justice Department has launched a pattern or practice investigation into Rankin County,