10/16/2026
STOP POLICE TERRORISM!
Mark McNamara, a former San Jose police officer, has been permanently decertified by the state of California after an internal investigation uncovered racist text messages in which he wrote “I hate black people” and used racial slurs to describe the man he had sh*t the year before.
McNamara, who had served with the San Jose Police Department for six years, was the officer who sh*t college football player K’aun Green four times on the steps of La Victoria Taqueria on March 27, 2022. Green, then 20, had wrestled a g*n away from an armed, intoxicated patron during a restaurant brawl and was exiting the building with the weapon raised when McNamara opened fire, wrongly believing Green was tied to a h*micide nearby. Investigators later found that the earlier k*lling had no connection to the restaurant fight.
Internal affairs discovered McNamara’s messages the following year while investigating him on an unrelated matter. In one text sent the evening of the sh*oting, he wrote, “N---a wanted to carry a g*n in the Wild West. Not on my watch haha.” Other messages, sent months later during hearings on the sh*oting, grew more inflammatory, including “I hate black people.” San Jose Police Chief Anthony Mata announced McNamara’s exit from the department on November 3, 2023, calling the texts “disgusting,” and said the department was “committed to ensuring Mr. McNamara cannot serve as a police officer elsewhere.” McNamara resigned hours before the texts were made public and did not contest the state’s decertification list, where his name appeared under a charge of “demonstrating bias” less than two weeks later.
Green filed a federal civil rights lawsuit accusing McNamara of excessive force, and a federal judge subsequently ordered the release of more than 300 additional messages, the large majority containing slurs. In depositions, McNamara claimed the language reflected movies and comedy routines rather than his own views. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2025 that the case could proceed to trial, and San Jose’s city council went on to approve an $8 million settlement for Green, who is now attending the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff on a football scholarship.
