Nov 7, 2023
Cop Who Shot Black Hero Loses Job Over Racist Texts About Shooting
- 7 minutes
A cop who shot a Black hero lost his
job after hateful text messages.
Mark McNamara, a San Jose police officer,
has been exposed after
sending a slew of racist text
messages about a Black hero he shot.
That's right, he shot him.
[00:00:15]
And now he has been reportedly,
he actually reportedly
resigned from the department.
According to a November 3rd press
release from San Jose Police Department,
McNamara allegedly sent a text message
to another department employee who
is currently on administrative leave
amid an internal investigation.
[00:00:34]
The exchange came after the March 27th,
2022 shooting of a community
college football player, Kayon Green,
who is still recovering from his injuries.
Details of the shooting, Green was
inside La Victoria Taqueria with his
[00:00:49]
friends when a random man walked into
the restaurant and threatened the group.
The man left the establishment,
returned with two other people and
one pulled out a gun,
sparking a physical altercation.
Green's attorney argued that
he was acting in self-defense.
[00:01:05]
He wrestled the gun away from the guy,
according to his attorney,
who was Adante Pointer.
And he told this to the local news and
we got it covered from Atlanta Black Star.
So what you see here is a young man who
sprang into action to defend himself,
himself and others and was backing away,
creating space between him and
[00:01:23]
the gunman who was trying to
take the gun back from him,
trying to de-escalate the situation.
As he was exiting the restaurant with the
gun, he was shot multiple times by police.
They believed he was linked to
a homicide that happened nearby.
[00:01:40]
Green was arrested and transported
to a local hospital when police
realized he was not the suspect,
they arrested and charged another man.
Green filed a lawsuit against the city and
the department last year.
McNamara was identified as the officer
who shot the student athlete.
[00:01:55]
In a text message revealed
by the department last week,
he spoke about Green
a day after the shooting.
The N word, he said he didn't say n word,
he said the actual word.
N word wanted to carry a gun in
the Wild west, not on my watch,
haha, he allegedly wrote
in a message to another.
[00:02:13]
He also said, I hate Black people.
Pointer, of course,
is the lawyer for Green.
Pointer called the dialogue disgusting and
vile, according to KGO-TV,
they are calling for criminal
charges to be filed against him and
[00:02:29]
wanted to stop him from being rehired.
At one point, McNamara seemingly text that
Green's attorney should be bowing to me
and bringing him gifts, otherwise he would
have lived a life of poverty and crime.
Jesus Christ, this is ugly and nasty, but
it is the state we find ourselves in.
[00:02:49]
Chief Anthony Mata condemned the messages,
adding that his department has no room for
racial bias.
They found the messages while
conducting an unrelated investigation.
Green, who spoke for
the first time Sunday about the incident,
sat by his attorney at a news
conference and said, in their opinion,
[00:03:06]
the former officer should face
attempted murder and hate crimes.
Let me stop right here.
The fact that this person is telling the
district attorney that someone who shot
him multiple times should face
attempted murder charges and
[00:03:22]
hate crimes is a no brainer.
Unfortunately, in this country, we know so
often that Black men get shot by police
officers more than anybody else.
This is not an opinion, this is a fact.
Black men are shot by more than anybody
else, whether they're armed or unarmed.
And then to couple that
with the fact that we
[00:03:40]
have the text messages of how this
officer feels about not just Green,
but all Black people, and also thinking
that him shooting this young man,
this hero who protected himself and
others from an armed assailant,
should be bowing to him,
is absolutely disgusting, for sure.
[00:03:58]
But it's also paw for the course.
We can't say that this is a bad apple.
We can't say that this is a mistake.
We have to address the fact that this
continues to happen in our country,
in these United States so often, Sharon,
that we are forced to say
that this is the status quo.
[00:04:15]
>> Speaker 1: Yeah,
America, look at your life.
And it's so important that we
continue to talk about it,
no matter the fatigue of everyone else.
If anybody should be fatigued,
it should be Black people in America.
But I have to tell you, Mayor,
I'll address the easy part first.
[00:04:30]
Chief, you do have room for bias and
hate in your department, okay?
Because the former officer who was allowed
to resign wasn't texting himself,
Mayor, okay?
And I'm sure when you talk like that,
it's not a one off, okay.
[00:04:45]
You didn't take, I don't know.
Remember, people were taking Ambien and
getting in the car,
and they couldn't remember
where they were going.
It's not a case of that.
If I didn't know any better, I would
think that this person took an oath,
went through the training, all of it.
[00:05:03]
Got a weapon,
put his hand up only to hurt Black people.
I would actually think that, and
I think I have a shot at being correct.
>> Speaker 1: It's not far fetched
when you see how he feels.
And we also know the history of policing
in his company, I mean, his country.
[00:05:20]
Actually it's the only job in this
country where you can kill Black men.
And because of qualified immunity,
most of the time,
we know that you're not going to
be charged with anything, right?
It is so
commonplace that this has not happened.
Let me get some more into
what Green had to say.
Green also spoke on a personal level,
[00:05:36]
saying how the officer's
word made him feel.
It pains me to know how much
hate someone has in their heart.
This is what Green said.
I went in there to help and I came out
there needing help, almost killed.
Green added that it's scary to
think that McNamara would have shot
[00:05:54]
others around him.
Listen, the scary part about this
is this person was arrested not
because he shot this man.
He was arrested because
of the text messages.
And the sad part about it is they found
his text messages because of another
investigation.
And like you said, Sharon,
this is not small.
[00:06:10]
You don't just out of the blue,
start texting your coworkers that you
hate Black people and using the N word.
You don't just text coworkers
out of the blue these things.
This is a commonplace.
And that chief can say what
needs to be said at this moment.
But this is absolutely, I guarantee,
not the only officer that believes and
[00:06:28]
behave in this manner.
And I bet you, if you dig deeper,
this is not the first time that this
been brought to this chief's attention,
that this officer is what they
call a bad apple, Sharon.
>> Speaker 2: Yeah, that part, Mayor, and
I was going to go there with the chief
again because I don't see a leader here.
[00:06:44]
And maybe it's just because I'm jaded,
I've been a reporter too long, but
my reporter Spidey sense tells me
that these text messages that were
found were not just turned over
because people have integrity.
They were likely turned over because other
people saw them that weren't going to
keep quiet.
[00:06:59]
Other people knew about them and
it was going to come out anyway.
Again, maybe I'm just cynical a reporter
here, but I just want to know a time
when Black men, Black children are going
to get the benefit of the doubt.
As I look back at you,
the Mayor of Enfields,
[00:07:17]
North Carolina, I got to tell you,
I worry about you.
I really worry about you.
That could be you, it could be me,
it could be any of our loved ones.
For what?
I'm glad you called him a hero.
For what?
>> Indeed, and that is a wonderful
fact to point out to people.
[00:07:34]
Black men continually are brutalized by
the system, and in this case, police.
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