Former Pearl officer sentenced for intimidating arrestee into licking urine off floor

JACKSON, Miss. (WJTV) – A former Pearl police officer has been convicted of intimidating an arrestee into licking his own urine off the ground.

On Wednesday, June 12, a federal judge sentenced Michael Christian Green to 12 months in prison. He is expected to report to prison on July 26, 2024.

Green was also fined $1,500 and sentenced to one year of supervised probation once released from prison.

The former officer pleaded guilty to a charge of deprivation of civil rights in March 2024.

The charge stems from a December 23, 2023 video that the City of Pearl provided to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Although court documents do not mention race, a spokesperson for Pearl said Green was white and the man he arrested was Latino. The charging document says Green arrested the man after a disturbance at a store in Pearl.

Pearl prison security footage showed that once the man was in a cell, he knocked on the cell door and tried to tell Green he needed to urinate, according to the court document. After waiting for some time, the man went to the back of the cell and urinated in a corner, the document states.

The man who was arrested is identified in the court document only by his initials, BE. Security camera footage showed Green telling BE he would beat him with a phone.

“You’re about to go in there and you’re going to lick that shit,” Green said, according to the court document. “Do you understand me?”

Green took the man back into the cell and told him to get on the ground and “suck it up,” then used his phone to take videos of BE while the man got on the ground and licked his own urine, according to the document. After the man retched several times, Green told him to “don't spit it out,” according to the document.

“Green had no governmental interest or law enforcement purpose in ordering BE to lick his urine,” the federal charging document states.

Pearl officials said when the city discovered the disturbing incident, they launched an internal investigation. On December 27, 2023, Green was removed from office.

Pearl Mayor Jake Windham said Green worked for the Pearl Police Department for about six months after working at other law enforcement agencies in the Jackson area.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.