RANKIN COUNTY, Miss. (WJTV) – A special type of training is being held for the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office following the state and federal convictions of the so-called “Goon Squad.”

The Leadership and Accountability training aims to educate law enforcement officers and give them guidance when it comes to their role in the community.

The training comes after five Rankin County deputies and one Richland police officer pled guilty to beating and torturing two Black men at a Braxton home in January 2023.

“Mississippi will not tolerate any acts of excessive force or police brutality. So, that’s what we’re here for, to let these guys know that we won’t tolerate that. And we’re going to talk about leadership, talk about it. You see this again, how to identify it, but most importantly, eliminate them from your ranks,” said retired Lt. Col. Thomas Tuggle.

The Rankin County Sheriff’s Office is undergoing a series of training exercises this week.

“We get to talk about a lot of mistakes that we’ve made to try to help folks not make the same mistakes, because we’ve been through things. We’ve been through difficulties. We’ve done some things that we would rather do differently and try to teach some really strong leadership principles,” said retired Col. William Truax.

The goal is to educate law enforcement officers and better equip them with the necessary tools for leadership in the community.

“There’s not a job more difficult than in the job that they have. So, they have a very noble position in society. So, leadership is all about influence and people. It’s a human endeavor,” said Col. Bradley Ward.

Rankin County Undersheriff Paul Holley said this is a good opportunity to interact and get to know each other as a department.

“We also have people here from deputies on patrol, deputies in court services. We have jailers. We have juvenile detention officers, and a lot of us don’t get to interact because of our separate jobs that we do. And this is a good opportunity for us to get to know each other as a department and move forward as a more cohesive unit,” Holley said.

Tuggle is spearheading the training and said this is a good way to address issues and weed out bad apples.

“We talk to them about identifying their leadership traits, identifying their abilities, but most importantly, we get them to focus on their weaknesses because everybody’s focusing on their strengths, and they don’t focus on the weaknesses. And they can’t be a complete person until you eliminate those weaknesses. So, the law enforcement has to deal with trauma every day, and we have to compartmentalize that. And that’s something that we talked about today, and it was good to see these officers open up and talk about the things that they’ve encountered in life,” said Tuggle.

The “Goon Squad” is set to be sentenced in October.