Who is Mark McNamara? San Jose cop resigns after officials found he had sent ‘disgusting’ racist texts littered with N-word
SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA: Mark McNamara, a San Jose police officer, who was involved in the shooting of a Black football player, is no longer employed with the department after an investigation found that he sent "disgusting" racist text messages.
The investigation was launched against McNamara after he shot high school football star K'aun Green, who is now a Contra Costa College linebacker, four times in the back, abdomen, and arm.
The shooting took place on March 27, 2022, when a chaotic brawl broke out at a popular taqueria, La Victoria Restaurant, and Green wrestled a gun away from an assailant.
According to a video of the incident, the young football player was wrestling with one man when another man brought out what police called a ghost gun to defend the man against him.
Green was about to leave the restaurant after obtaining the gun when police arrived at the scene, assumed that he was the shooter, and shot him.
After it was established that Green was not the active shooter, the department stated that McNamara shot him out of fear that the brawl at the restaurant was connected to a homicide that had occurred a block away earlier.
Although a clarification was made, the police never apologized for their actions or retracted from their position.
A few days later, Green filed a civil lawsuit against the department and McNamara was placed on routine administrative leave as the investigation continued.
What text messages did Mark McNamara send?
Amid the investigation, officials were alerted to a series of texts sent to two unnamed recipients — described only as one active department employee and a former department employee.
The texts were about the shootout and were dated the day after the incident happened, according to Daily Mail.
"I'm pretty sure the district attorney would have charged me if I used excessive force, but she didn't, because I didn't use excessive force... I'll shoot you too,” he said in one text, as per ABC 7 News.
In other texts, McNamara described Black men, saying, "They ought to be presenting me with presents and bowing to me... If not, he would have led a life of crime and poverty."
"N-word wanted to carry a gun in the Wild West. Not on my watch haha," he wrote in another text, adding "I hate black people."
"How long does the canary have to keep telling you there's something wrong inside this function," said Rev Jethroe Moore II, the president of the NAACP of San Jose and Silicon Valley.
How did officials react to Mark McNamara’s texts?
Officials revealed that the employee who received the messages has been put on administrative leave and is 'pending an internal investigation'.
Reflecting on McNamara’s texts, San Jose Police Chief Anthony Mata said “Earlier this week, through an unrelated criminal investigation into one of our officers, Internal Affairs Investigators discovered that the officer had sent disgusting text messages that demonstrated racial bias.”
“Immediately, Internal Affairs initiated a separate proactive administrative investigation. These messages came to light in the last few days and hours and that officer is no longer employed with the City.”
“There is zero tolerance for even a single expression of racial bias at the San José Police Department. The messages were found due to the expansion of our Internal Affairs Unit's efforts to thoroughly investigate all questionable conduct and that is why we have made investments in a new early warning system,” he added.