San Jose Racist Texting Update: Ex-Cop Seeks Venue Change

Source: MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty Images / Getty

An ex-San Jose police officer who resigned after his police chief released 10 pages of racist text messages, including one where he declared, “I hate Black people,” is facing a lawsuit that was filed after he shot one of the Black people that he hates in 2022. Now, the former cop, Mark McNamara, is asking a judge to move his case 300 miles away from Santa Clara County, where his attorneys argue he can’t get a fair trial due to the negative attention he has gotten in the media.

According to KTVU, McNamara’s attorney cited in court filings 12 print and TV news stories that were reported on the KKKop who shot K’aun Green, a Black man who reportedly walked outside of a bar holding a gun he had wrestled away from a patron who was involved in a physical confrontation with other patrons. Apparently, McNamara is afraid a bigot in blue will be treated as unfairly in a local courtroom as he likely treated every Black citizen he encountered while on patrol.

From KTVU:

Last month, McNamara’s attorney, Susan Coleman, asked U.S. District Court Nathaneal M. Cousins to move his upcoming civil trial to the Eureka-McKinleyville area, just south of the Oregon border.

In an opposing motion, attorneys for K’aun Green, a Black college football player whom McNamara shot and injured on the steps of a taqueria two years ago, said there is no need to move the trial. The stories have not been voluminous and all have been factually accurate.

“There’s no way this should be granted,” Green’s attorney, Adante Pointer, said on Tuesday.

Another attorney for the plaintiff, Angel Alexander, noted that McNamara’s legal team appears to be blaming the media for reporting a story presented to the media by the defendant’s own former police chief.

“The irony is that the police chief released this in a press conference to the press, and then, in turn, the city is now blaming the press for the coverage of this story, which the police broke themselves,” she said. “So it’s pretty outrageous.”

It’s also worth pointing out that Green’s shooting and McNamara’s anti-Black text-capades made national headlines; the reporting wasn’t confined to local media. (NewsOne is, as far as I know, not based in Santa Clara County, for example.) So, moving the case may not solve all of his problems anyway.

Of course, the motion put forth by the defense could be a stall tactic designed to further delay Green’s case.

More from KTVU:

Cousins was originally supposed to rule on this change of venue request later this month. However, McNamara’s legal team is now appealing Cousins’ ruling to permit Green to present his case to the jury to Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

“Defendants often use appeals as a way to delay and discourage plaintiffs,” Pointer said. “We are committed to fighting for justice for Mr. Green.”

No decision on the change of venue will be made until the Ninth Circuit renders a ruling.

Perhaps McNamara’s attitude has changed since not long after he shot Green, when he sent a text that suggested Green should thank him for shooting him and that he really doesn’t care about the case against him since he knows he’ll lose it as a poor, oppressed white man.

“I finally had to tell this city attorney what’s what,” McNamara texted. “I’m like dude, I don’t give a sh*t about this case. I’m white, he’s black, he’s gonna win. AND I DONT CARE. It’s a b—- whatever they decide has no bearing on me what so ever. It’s basically kangaroo court.”

First of all, I’m not sure where perpetually aggrieved white people are getting it that Black people receive some kind of special privileges in the American legal system, but I know virtually all statistical data on racial disparities in the courts would prove that narrative to be a fat Caucaizon lie.

Secondly, it probably doesn’t help McNamara’s case that he also texted, “N*gger wanted to carry a gun in the Wild West…Not on my watch” when describing his shooting of a Black man who had just risked his life in a heroic act.

All I’m saying is moving the case out of the county won’t remove that anti-Black hate from the racist ex-cop’s heart, and it certainly shouldn’t be done to shield him from accountability.

Fact Check: No, Rep. Jasmine Crockett Did NOT Call For Black People To Be Exempt From Paying Taxes