SAN JOSE — The city of San Jose has been ordered to disclose more damning text messages and the previously unreleased names of two officers connected to a scandal in which a now-former cop prolifically used racist language to disparage a Black man he shot two years ago.
The disclosures to attorneys for K’aun Green were in accordance with a Dec. 28 order by federal Judge Nathaniel Cousins, and were due Wednesday. Green requested the additional legal discovery as part of a federal civil-rights lawsuit filed against the police department and city over Green being shot and wounded in March 2022 by former San Jose Police Department officer Mark McNamara.
Adante Pointer, one of Green’s attorneys who has sued the city, confirmed that his law firm, Lawyers for the People, received the discovery which in Cousins’ order is narrowed to “text messages obtained from the personal cell phone of Defendant McNamara that contain a racial slur, word, reference, or statement possibly demonstrating racial bias.”
Pointer told this news organization that his firm was not immediately prepared to comment on or potentially release the contents of a “slew of text messages” as well as the names of one current SJPD officer and one former SJPD officer who were part of the racist correspondence by McNamara. He said his firm needed time to review the materials and that their public response to the disclosures is “forthcoming.”
The names of the two other officers texting with McNamara — in which he wrote passages including “I hate Black people,” made light of shooting Green and threatened Green’s attorneys — had been withheld from public release by the city and police department, citing personnel and privacy protections since they had not been charged with any crimes.
Now, with Cousins’ order and confirmation that this information has been turned over to Green’s attorneys, it’s seemingly only a matter of time before the public knows who was in these text chains.
The judge’s order rejected the city’s claims that the officers’ names were legally privileged, and noted that “the identity of the officers provides important context about the contents” of McNamara’s texts. Cousins added that “it could be particularly relevant” to Green’s lawsuit claims of excessive force and that police culture and training contributed to his shooting.
In step with the judge’s Wednesday disclosure deadline, SJPD Police Chief Anthony Mata issued a statement Wednesday evening acknowledging the federal order. He also reiterated his support for changing state law to allow police agencies to publicly release names and details about officers involved in high-profile misconduct without running afoul of rules protecting personnel information and officer privacy.
Mata called the legal disclosure “critical for the public to have full confidence in our course of action following the discovery of the messages and illustrates why I took decisive action in November.”
It was on Nov. 3 that the police department announced that two days earlier, McNamara resigned after being confronted with racist text messages that surfaced during an unrelated criminal investigation into him by internal affairs detectives. That investigation did not yield any charges.
But the content of the text messages quickly overshadowed how they were discovered. Many of them mentioned Green, who McNamara shot in the early morning hours of March 27, 2022 in what became an infamous case because by all accounts, Green had been a peacemaker in a brawl that erupted inside a taqueria near the San Jose State University campus.
Green had disarmed a gun from one of the combatants and was backing away from them toward the restaurant entrance, holding the gun high in the air and keeping it away from two men who continued to paw at the weapon.
McNamara was at the front of a contingent of officers staged at the taqueria entrance, and security footage shows McNamara and other officers yelling at Green to drop the gun. Green turned slightly toward the officers and it appeared that once he recognized them he showed his hands, but by that point McNamara fired four shots in quick succession.
Text messages sent by McNamara in the aftermath of that shooting exhibited a callousness toward the shooting of Green, a former McClymonds High School football star trying to find a professional spot in the sport.
“N— wanted to carry a gun in the Wild West … Not on my watch,” read one of the messages.
Other texts seemed to coincide with his depositions in the civil lawsuit filed by Green: “They should all be bowing to me and bringing me gifts since I saved a fellow n— by making him rich as f—. Otherwise, he woulda lived a life of poverty and crime.”
In another, McNamara wrote, “The other day this n— lawyer is like Mr. McNamara, you know we can still find you guilty of excessive force right? I’m like, hmmm yeah then (what) happens?? … Think I give a f— what y’all n— think?!???? I’ll shoot you too!!!!! AHHHHHH!!!!!”
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The latter message appears to at least be part of the basis of a gun-violence restraining order the police department secured against McNamara around the same time it submitted his name for state decertification to prohibit him from serving as a police officer again in California. The restraining order, which was among the terms of McNamara’s resignation, barred him from possessing 10 rifles, four shotguns and four pistols he kept at his home until late May.
Other fallout was mentioned in Mata’s statement Wednesday, in which he said the former SJPD officer who participated in McNamara’s texts was severed from his out-of-state police job after that unnamed agency was informed of his involvement in the scandal.
As for the current SJPD officer who texted with McNamara, Mata said that an internal investigation is ongoing and “is subject to legal rules of limited information release and requires a more traditional course of time to ensure we complete a thorough administrative investigation.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
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