What unspeakable act did a police officer force an arrestee to perform in a Mississippi holding cell?

This article mentions police abuse. Please read with caution.

In Dec. 2023, former police officer Michael Christian Green responded to a disturbance call at Sam’s Club location in Pearl, Mississippi. Green took one man into custody, but about three months later, it was Green, not the man arrested, facing federal charges.

According to The Guardian, Green, 26, arrested a man known only in court documents as “B.E.” Once arrested at Sam’s Club, B.E. was placed in a holding cell at the Pearl police station, near Jackson, Mississippi, when he tried to tell Green he needed to urinate. Green never responded, and according to The Guardian, B.E. urinated in the corner of the cell.

B.E. was then transferred to the booking area. At that time, Green was notified about what B.E. had done. Green ordered B.E. back into the holding cell, and told him to do the unthinkable to clean up the mess.

Green ordered B.E. to lick up the urine

Once Michael Christian Green learned that B.E. urinated in the corner of the holding cell, he demanded Green get down on his hands and knees and lick it up, and if B.E. didn’t do it, Green threatened physical harm. According to The Daily Beast, one witness heard Green say, “Let me tell you somethin’. You see this phone? I will beat your f***ing *ss with it. You’re fixin’ to go in there and you’re gonna lick that p*** up. Do you understand me?”

Green then took footage on his phone of B.E. gagging while licking the floor and ordering him not to “spit it out.” B.E. later vomited into a trash can in the booking area. The incident was also captured on security footage. When the City of Pearl learned what happened, they opened an internal investigation, and Green resigned shortly after.

Green pleaded guilty

In March 2024, Michael Christian Green pleaded guilty to federal charges of depriving B.E. of his “Civil Rights Under Color of Law” and could spend up to 12 months in prison and pay a $10,000 fine. Green remained free on bond until June 2024, when his sentencing was expected to be announced.

Referring to the case, Pearl’s mayor, Jake Windham, said at a press conference, “I don’t understand how you treat someone like that. 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.”