Former police officer convicted of forcing arrestee to lick urine off cell floor

CNN
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A former Mississippi police officer was sentenced to a year in federal prison followed by a year of supervised release as well as fines and assessments for forcing a man he had arrested to lick urine from the floor of the detention cell.

Michael Christian Green received the maximum sentence for a federal offense for acting under color of law to deprive a person of their civil rights. The former Pearl Police Department officer pleaded guilty in March and is scheduled to report to the Federal Bureau of Prisons on July 26.

Green worked for the Pearl Police Department for six months after working at other law enforcement agencies in Jackson, Mississippi. Pearl is in the same county where six white former police officers, some of whom called themselves “Goon Squad,” were convicted on federal and state charges after pleading guilty to a racist attack on two innocent black men.

Green responded to a disturbance at a Sam's Club on Dec. 23, 2023, and arrested a man, according to the complaint. Once the man was incarcerated, security footage from the holding cell showed him trying to tell Green he needed to urinate, the federal prosecutor wrote in the complaint. After receiving no response, the man urinated in a corner. When Green was later told about the urine, he asked the arrested person to lick the urine, threatening to beat him with a phone, according to the complaint.

While standing in front of the holding cell door, Green ordered the man to get on the ground and “suck him up,” according to the complaint, then “removed his phone from his duty jacket and filmed” the man, who obeyed. Green resigned on December 27.

Green testified in federal court during his sentencing hearing and took responsibility for his actions and said he regretted what he did.

CNN has reached out to Green's attorney for comment.

“The City of Pearl, while not the sentencing agency in this case, is pleased that this part of our recent history is behind us,” the municipality said in a statement. “Michael Green's actions were reprehensible and inexcusable, and we were deeply saddened to have been associated with this incident. We hope this sentence can help the victim and his family in their healing process, and we are grateful to our federal partners who helped bring this terrible incident to justice quickly.