A Mississippi police officer pleaded guilty Thursday to forcing a detainee to lick urine off the floor of his jail cell.
Michael Christian Green, 26, resigned from the Pearl Police Department in December, four days after security cameras caught him forcing the man to commit what officials called a “disturbing” act.
Green — who has a large cross tattooed on one arm and the word “Blessed” tattooed on the other — stood calmly before a federal magistrate judge and pleaded guilty to the charge of deprivation of civil rights.
“If you’re going to be a police officer, you got to do things right. You got to operate within the Constitution of the United States,” Pearl Mayor Jake Windham said at a press conference.
“And I feel very strongly about that and apologize to the family of this gentleman that was exposed to this type of negligent and horrible type of treatment from an officer of the law,” said Windham.
According to the mayor, Green had only been on the force for about six months — and had a history at other departments — when he carried out the abuse of power.
Green had arrested the man on Dec. 23 for causing a disturbance at Sam’s Club and was overseeing him in the holding cell, prosecutors said in charging documents.
The detainee — identified only as B.E. — knocked on a door and tried to tell Green that he needed to use the restroom, but ultimately urinated in the corner of the cell after his request was ignored for some time.
That’s when Green was caught on video footage threatening to beat B.E. with a phone.
“You’re fixin’ to go in there and you’re going to lick that p— up,” Green said, according to the court document. “Do you understand me?”
Green stood in the doorway and used his cellphone to record as the man relented to the officer’s orders.
When B.E. gagged multiple times, Green told him, “don’t spit it out,” though the man later vomited, according to the document.
Although court documents did not mention race, Green is white and his victim is Latino, city officials said.
The city of Pearl discovered the horrifying act over Christmas weekend and immediately opened an investigation.
Green resigned on Dec. 27, but would have been forced out of the force if he hadn’t taken it upon himself to leave, Windham said.
“The proper thing to do was to take the gentleman to the restroom and to not do anything of this magnitude and violate his civil rights,” Windham said.
“I can’t make rhyme or reason of it. I don’t understand. I don’t understand how you treat someone like that.”
Green remains free on bond until his May 24 sentencing. He faces up to one year in prison and a $10,000 fine. He was ordered to surrender his Mississippi law enforcement certification.
With Post wires
