A Hawaii police officer admitted to forcing a man to lick the inside of a urinal to avoid arrest.
Honolulu police officer John Rabago said in court on Monday that he told the homeless man, identified as S.I., that he wouldn’t arrest him as long as he licked a urinal. Rabago said that the man did as instructed, kneeling down to put his face inside the urinal, according to the Associated Press.
The incident occurred when Rabago and another officer, Reginald Ramones, responded to a nuisance complaint and found the man in the stall of the public bathroom. Rabago said the man was not cooperative and gave officers a fake name at first.
After the man told the officers he would do anything to avoid arrest, Rabago said he told him in an aggressive tone, “If you lick the urinal, you won’t get arrested.”
Rabago and Ramones were both arrested earlier this year. U.S. District Judge Leslie Kobayashi said Rabago deliberately made the order.
“You knowingly and willfully forced S.I. to lick the urinal,” she said.
Rabago is on restricted duty, and Ramones, who left the department earlier this year, pleaded guilty in September to a lesser charge.
