College Student Shot by San José Police Calls for Probe into Racist Texts

A man shot by a San José police officer last year renewed calls for a criminal investigation into the shooting after the police department released text messages expressing anti-Black racism allegedly sent by the officer.

Oakland resident K’aun Green, who is Black, was shot four times by Mark McNamara in March 2022 after Green disarmed a man inside La Victoria Taqueria in San José. Green, a college football player, was not charged with a crime. He has sued the city and McNamara for civil rights violations.

McNamara, who joined the department in 2017, resigned Nov. 1 after being notified of an investigation into his texts, which were released Friday by the San José Police Department. He has not been charged for shooting Green.

On Sunday, Sean Webby, public communications officer at the Santa Clara County Office of the District Attorney, said the office is reviewing its initial investigation. On Monday, the Santa Clara County Public Defender Office said it was in the process of scheduling talks with the district attorney about how McNamara’s text messages might impact criminal cases that relied on his police work.

“Given the racist nature of his text messages, we have to assume it is an attitude which he carries deep within his practice,” said Deputy Public Defender Charlie Hendrickson, speaking on behalf of the office.

According to Green’s attorneys, McNamara, who identifies himself as white in the text messages, claimed in a deposition that he feared for his life when he saw Green holding a gun. Green, 22, said the text messages paint a different picture.

“It scares me to know how much hate a person can have in their heart and to know that no matter what I did, I was still gonna be shot,” he said. “I went in there to help. I came out looking for help, seeking help from officers — people that are supposed to help me — only to be shot and almost killed.”

The 10 pages of messages sent between McNamara and other unnamed officers include some sent in the hours after the shooting. McNamara appears to reference the incident, writing, “N— wanted to carry a gun in the wild west.” A subsequent text said, “Not on my watch haha.”

The names and phone numbers of the people McNamara texted were partially redacted in messages shared by the department. Following a June meeting with Green’s attorneys, some of whom are Black, McNamara again used the N-word when referring to Green.

“There was like 65 African lookin mother fuckers there too. All just mean mugging me and taking notes,” he wrote. “They should all be bowing to me and brining [sic] me gifts since I saved a fellow n— by making him rich as fuck. Otherwise he woulda [sic] lived a life of poverty and crime.”

He followed up a few weeks later with, “I hate black people.”

The text messages are just the latest in a string of scandals involving Bay Area police sharing racist texts with colleagues. Earlier this year, an FBI probe into wrongdoing by Antioch and Pittsburg police officers led to the release of hundreds of racist text messages. Since then, the Contra Costa District Attorney has recommended dismissing at least 30 criminal cases involving police work by the implicated officers.

According to San José police, the messages were discovered during an internal affairs investigation into McNamara for an unrelated matter.

Currently a sophomore at the City College of San Francisco, Green said the shooting has left him shaken. He said videos on social media of police harming Black Americans had already made him weary of law enforcement.

“Now it’s way worse,” he said. “I recently just got pulled over before one of my football games, and I was literally shaking. I had to call my mother.”

He said playing football, despite lingering pain in his knee and abdomen from the shooting, helps him stay grounded and keeps depression at bay. At Sunday’s press conference, Green’s attorneys, calling on the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training to revoke McNamara’s peace officer certification, criticized the department for not firing McNamara.

“You have allowed an avowed racist cop an opportunity to go and seek employment in another community just to terrorize another person on another day,” Adante Pointer said.

Green said the messages are indicative of a much bigger problem for the department,t which placed four officers on leave in 2020 for making racist Facebook posts. Angel Alexander, an attorney for Green, called for the names of other officers involved in the exchanges to be made public.

“These [texts] were not a monologue,” she said. “These were a dialogue between multiple members of the San José Police Department.”

In a statement, the police department said one officer who received messages from McNamara has been put on administrative leave.