LAWRENCE, Mass. — William Green is a cop with nine lives, a trapeze act with a decades-long history of tweaking mayors and superiors and surviving to talk about it, usually in homemade YouTube videos.

Since joining the police force in 2006 in this city of 78,000 on the Merrimack River, Green has outlasted a layoff, six suspensions, a false arrest, two 12-week stress-related leaves, two attempts to fire him and a very public exchange with Lawrence Mayor Daniel Rivera, who at a campaign fundraiser last month referred to him as “a crazed rogue” police officer.

Green says Rivera – whom he refers to as Danny – tolerates corruption and racism in the police department and says he may run against him later this year. The challenge to Rivera’s leadership would be Green’s second. In 2014, he briefly led an unsuccessful effort to recall him.

Through it all, Green has tested the limits of the First Amendment’s free speech guarantees and related court cases, which allow governments to restrain the speech of their employees, as private-sector employees can do, to ensure the efficient operation of the workplace. But courts have ruled that the lid comes off when the speech involves issues of public concern. Courts have allowed officers to shine spotlights on deficiencies in their departments, which they are uniquely positioned to see.

Also being tested is the strength of the so-called “blue wall” in Lawrence, a tradition that cops don’t criticize cops. Green’s criticisms have earned him both detractors and supporters in the department. He accuses his union leader, Detective Alan Andrews, of giving him only tepid support, or none at all, over the years. Andrews did not return phone calls.

Now, Rivera and police Chief James Fitzpatrick – Green calls him Jimmy — are pursuing more charges against Green that could bring on more suspensions or another attempt to fire him. A dismissal could derail his potential mayoral campaign or give him another issue to campaign on if he runs.

In Haverhill District Court, Green is facing assault charges after he allegedly belly-bumped Officer Ivan Melendez at headquarters on Lowell Street in 2015. He denies the charge. A trial is scheduled for March.

Unrelated to that, Rivera fired Green on Dec. 8 for allegedly failing to report to work for more than 14 days in a row, a limit set in state law.

Five days before the firing, Green posted another YouTube video critical of the mayor and the department, this time for what he says was a botched search for a Lawrence High School sophomore who was found decapitated in December, 12 days after his family reported him missing.

Green responded in a letter to Rivera noting that he attended a court hearing on behalf of the department in the middle of the 14 days, which reset the clock. But he acknowledged taking some unauthorized days off to protest conditions in the department.

Rivera ordered Green back to duty on Jan. 3, after receiving the paperwork confirming that Green attended the half-day court hearing during what otherwise would have been a 14-day absence. When Green returned to headquarters, he was handed back his gun and badge as well as a letter accusing him of other charges involving his absences and 15 additional charges. He was then suspended with pay from his $59,348-a-year job and sent home again.

The new allegations in the letter, which is signed by Rivera, include conduct unbecoming for an officer, intimidation of a witness, incompetence, insubordination, neglect of duty, disrespecting superior officers, publicly disseminating official information and failing to tell the truth at official proceedings. The letter only lists the charges and does not elaborate.

“What I’ve been trying to do is work within the system to improve the condition of the community. There are cops that don’t like my presentation and don’t like how public I’m making it, but they agree with the substance.”

“I’m enjoying this,” he added as he walked past City Hall headed to an Essex Street doughnut shop for coffee on a recent afternoon. “We’re at war here. This is a combat engagement.”

Green’s troubles in the Lawrence Police Department began at a roll call at headquarters in July 2008, two years after he was hired, when he raised his hand to question why his patrol was being reassigned to a rookie. He was charged with insubordination and suspended two days.

In 2009, he was suspended for a day for taking a sick day after running through the 15 days of sick time allowed.

In 2010, he was among two dozen police officers then-mayor William Lantigua laid off in a budget crunch. He was reinstated in 2011.

Over the next year, he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system. He took more than the 15 sick days he was entitled to during his treatment and recovery and, in a settlement to avoid a suspension, agreed to work three days without pay.

In 2013, Lantigua attempted to suspend Green for 60 days for failing to report 20 nighttime details he worked over four months at the Jowa and Copa clubs and keeping the city’s $338 share of his pay. Green said it was a paperwork oversight and asked for a hearing, which extended into Rivera’s term. Rivera went further than Lantigua and attempted to fire Green rather than suspend him, but a hearing officer said the punishment was too severe and instead suspended him for 90 days.

The suspension began early in 2014.

It was a busy time for Green and the police department.

Two months into his suspension, Green, whose mother is white and father is black, attended a City Council meeting to allege “systemic racial discrimination in our Police Department.” He posted a video of his statement on YouTube.

Shortly after that, on June 20, about a dozen city and state police surrounded his house with their weapons drawn, believing he was making threatening calls to the department.

“They cleared the whole street,” Green recalled. “My neighbors were clustered at the top of my street watching this go down. My neighbor across the street was filming it and counted 14 cops. When I came out, I had a laser on me.”

Lasers are used as aiming devices to assist in the targeting of firearms.

He was taken to a state police barracks for questioning and released after about an hour when another suspect was arrested and charged with making the calls.

He returned to the force in July 2014. Within days, he was suspended again when a prisoner who was admitted to Lawrence General Hospital after slashing his arm in a jail cell slipped his handcuffs and escaped. Green had been assigned to watch him.

“I was in the bathroom,” Green said. “I came back and he was gone.”

Another suspension came in December 2015, after he posted a video on YouTube defending the effort to recall Rivera and accusing him of doing nothing about the opioid crisis, tolerating racist officers and putting friends in city jobs. He titled the 11-minute video “Mayor Rivera, stop spreading lies and do your job.”

“I’m not satisfied and thousands of Lawrencians are not satisfied,” Green said in the video. “It’s our right to call for your removal from office. Stop attacking me. Stop attacking us. Stop wasting time. Do the job you were elected to do. If you had from the beginning, you wouldn’t be facing a recall.”

Capt. Scott McNamara reviewed the video at Fitzpatrick’s request and concluded that some of it violated a directive Fitzpatrick issued a year earlier that prohibited members of the department from posting online about issues involving the department’s internal affairs.

Sarah Wunsch, deputy legal director of the Massachusetts chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said alleged racism in the department would be an issue of public concern, and so suspending Green for making the allegation violated his First Amendment rights.

Rivera declined to comment on Green’s allegations and the pending charges against him.

“Bill can talk about the personnel matters all he wants,” Rivera said. “I can’t. I’m the employer. I can’t talk about this. But separate and apart from this is that we’re going to do what we continue to do – that is, if we have employees who are not doing what they’re supposed to do, we’ll discipline them.”

He responded to Green’s allegations of racism in the department by noting his efforts to hire more Latino and African-American officers. 

In the meantime, Green is questioning the limits on his movement and association Rivera placed on him when he put him on leave earlier this month. Among other things, Rivera forbid Green from contacting any other city employees unless Chief Fitzpatrick arranges it, and directed him to “remain away from the property of the city of Lawrence.”

“I can’t go to the library with my kids?” Green said. “Are you serious?”

Eddings writes for the North Andover, Massachusetts Eagle-Tribune.