A former San Jose cop dismissed after numerous racist texts were uncovered is now in more legal hot water.
Former SJPD officer Mark McNamara is already part of a lawsuit related to his on-duty shooting of a young man involved in a restaurant brawl.
Now, a judge has ordered the release of additional texts, and some say these are even more troubling.
The current legal trouble for former McNamara started in March of 2022, when he responded to a brawl at a San Jose taqueria. That's where he shot K’uan Green, who had tried to stop the fighting and was holding a gun he had taken away from an attacker.
During a deposition, McNamara said he felt he didn’t do anything wrong but was contrite.
The man McNamara shot is now suing the city and last week, the judge in that case, ordered a second batch of McNamara’s texts released to Green’s legal team. It was that team that provided the texts to NBC Bay Area.
Most texts are texts too graphic to show, while there are others that reiterate comments in prior texts. Others include insults against the LGBTQ community and women.
In one text, he referred to a cashier saying, ‘I hate black people’ and ‘uppity N-word.’
In a second text, McNamara allegedly mocked police action by saying: ‘you harassing them Blacks’ and another message read: ‘ I hate Black people more than I hate being a cop.’
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“This is someone who apparently loathed his job and the people that he was assigned to serve and protect,” said Adante Pointer, Green’s attorney. “They need to take a deeper dive into the mind and the psyche of the people, who they are trusting to make life and death decisions.”
In yet another text, McNamara uses a racial slur to refer to an Asian doctor and how she spoke.
Legal analyst Steven Clark says the new texts will bring more prosecution scrutiny.
“When you look at these racist texts so close in time to the shooting, the DA’s office is going to evaluate what was his state of mind and they may not be done investigating him in this case. And also the fact that he erased these text messages is evidence in this case,” he said.
Unless the city of San Jose decides to settle out of court, the case involving McNamara will be heard in federal court in April.
