An ex-Mississippi police officer could face up to a year in prison after pleading guilty to a charge stemming from pressuring a man in custody to lick his urine.
Michael Christian Green arrested a man, identified as B.E., on December 23, 2023, following a report of a disturbance at a store in Pearl, about five miles from Jackson. According to court documents viewed by WJTV, he was taken to a local jail and placed in a cell.
What happened after was caught on security cameras inside the facility. B.E. told Green that he had to use the bathroom, but after waiting a while, the arrestee decided to urinate in the back corner of the cell, per the outlet.
Green was reportedly captured threatening to strike B.E. with a phone and forcing to “suck” up his urine. During this time, the former officer was recording the man and even demanded him not to “spit it out” while he was gagging.
“You’re fixin’ to go in there, and you’re going to lick that p—— up,” Green allegedly said. “Do you understand me?”
Green, who worked at the Pearl Police Department for less than a year, was relieved from his duties four days later. According to NBC News, this followed an investigation. Officials said that if he hadn’t resigned, the city council would have recommended his termination.
“If you’re going to be a police officer, you’ve got to do things right and you’ve got to operate within the constitution of the United States. And I feel very strongly about that,” Mayor Jake Windham said at a news conference this week. “And I apologize to the family of this gentleman that was exposed to just the type of negligent and horrible-type treatment from an officer of the law.”
Green pleaded guilty to one count of deprivation of civil rights on Thursday, and his sentence hearing is set for mid-June, WJTV reported. He could spend up to 12 months behind bars.
“We have a no tolerance for things of this nature,” Windham added, per the news station. “So, we’re going to continue to have a no tolerance of this nature. And then, yeah, it’ll take the citizens to regain some trust. But there’s a lot of good police officers at the Pearl Police Department, men and women that do their job every day.”
