On Wednesday, a former Mississippi police officer received a one-year sentence in federal prison for forcing a man he detained to lick pee off the floor of his jail cell.
Michael Christian Green received the maximum prison sentence for the misdemeanor charge of acting under the cover of law to deprive someone of their civil rights. Green, 26, pleaded guilty on March 14 and is due to go to prison on July 26.
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Green lost his job as a patrol officer with the Pearl Police Department in late December, four days after surveillance cameras captured the violent incident in Pearl, a suburb of Jackson.
Although court filings did not specify race, Green is white, and a Pearl City spokesperson stated that the individual he detained is Latino. According to the court papers, Green apprehended the man on December 23 following a disturbance at a store.
According to the court statement, the man knocked on the door of a holding cell and attempted to tell Green that he needed to urinate after being placed inside. The record stated that after some time, the man moved to the back of the cell and urinated in a corner.
The court document only recognizes the arrested individual by his initials, B.E. The security camera footage showed Green threatening to beat B.E. with a phone.
Green returned the man to the cell and urged him to “suck it up,” according to the affidavit. He then used his phone to record footage of B.E. while the man licked his own pee. According to the statement, Green instructed the victim, “Don’t spit it out,” after he gagged several times.
The city of Pearl said in a statement that officials became aware of the “disturbing event” during Christmas weekend and launched an inquiry with the assistance of an independent attorney. Mayor Jake Windham stated that Green resigned on December 27.
Windham stated that Green had been with the Pearl Police Department for roughly six months after previously working at other law enforcement organizations in the Jackson region.
Although authorities investigate several instances of police shootings each year, Mississippi law enforcement officials rarely face violent punishment.
Pearl is located in Rankin County, where six white former law enforcement officers, some of whom referred to themselves as the “Goon Squad,” were sentenced to federal and state crimes earlier this year after pleading guilty to a racial assault on two black men in January 2023.
