A Mississippi police officer pleaded guilty Thursday to forcing a detainee to lick urine from the floor of his cell.
Michael Christian Green, 26, was arrested at Pearl Police Station in December, four days after he was caught on surveillance camera forcing a man to engage in what authorities called “disturbing” behavior. I resigned.
Green, who has a large cross tattooed on one arm and the word “Blessed” on the other, stood quietly before a federal judge and pleaded guilty to charges of deprivation of civil rights.
“If you’re going to be a police officer, you have to do things the right way. You have to operate within the confines of the United States Constitution,” Pearl Mayor Jake Windham said at a news conference.
“And I feel very strongly about that, and I apologize to the family of this gentleman who was subjected to such negligent and appalling type of treatment by officers of the law,” Windham said.
According to the mayor, Green had only been in the force for about six months at the time of his abuse of authority, and had also worked in other departments.
According to prosecutors’ indictment, Green arrested the man on December 23 on suspicion of causing a disturbance at Sam’s Club and supervised him in jail.
The detainee, identified only as BE, knocked on the door and tried to tell Mr. Green that he needed to go to the bathroom, but after his request was ignored for a while, he finally urinated in the corner of his cell.
That’s when Green was captured on video threatening to hit BE with his cell phone.
“I’m going to go in there and I’m going to lick that guy,” Green said, according to court documents. “do you understand me?”
Green stood in the doorway and recorded the man on his cell phone as he yielded to the officer’s commands.
When BE gagged him multiple times, Green told him not to vomit, but the man later vomited, according to the documents.
Court documents do not mention race, but city officials said Green is white and the victim is Latino.
The City of Pearl discovered this horrific act over Christmas weekend and immediately launched an investigation.
Mr. Green resigned on Dec. 27, but Mr. Windham said he would have been forced to leave the military if he had not resigned voluntarily.
“The appropriate action would have been to take the gentleman to the bathroom and not do something on such a large scale and not violate his civil rights,” Windham said.
“I can’t rhyme or reason. I don’t understand. I don’t understand how you treat people like that.”
Green remains free on bond until his sentencing on May 24th. He could face up to a year in prison and a $10,000 fine. He was ordered to surrender his status in Mississippi law enforcement.
with post wire
