A California officer is off the force after sending a slew of “disgusting” text messages to a colleague after he was involved in the shooting of a college football player, including one that said, “I hate black people.”
Ex-San Jose cop Mark McNamara resigned after it emerged that he penned “disgusting text messages that demonstrated racial bias,” Police Chief Anthony Mata told the Mercury News Friday.
The messages were uncovered during an investigation into McNamara’s involvement in a 2022 shooting of a black, 20-year-old college student who had just broken up a fight.
Many of the texts seem to reference the shooting last year in which then-officer McNamara shot football player K’aun Green at San José’s La Victoria Taqueria.
Green disarmed another man involved in the brawl but ended up being shot when police arrived and saw the gun in his hand, police said at the time.
In one text, dated a day after the shooting, McNamara wrote, “N— wanted to carry a gun in the Wild West,” with a second text reading, “Not on my watch haha.”
In other messages littered with use of the “n-word,” McNamara mentions the case, writing things like, “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.”
In one message McNamara notes that black men “should all be bowing to me and bringing me gifts… Otherwise he woulda lived a life of poverty and crime.”
Other messages reference him having court “for blasting that fool.”
In one message McNamara explicitly wrote, “I hate black people.”
“There is zero tolerance for even a single expression of racial bias at the San José Police Department,” Mata wrote.
The approximately two dozen messages were discovered during the criminal investigation into the shooting and a separate administrative investigation was launched “immediately,” according to the chief.
“These messages came to light in the last few days and hours and that officer is no longer employed with the city,” Mata said.
McNamara, who was part of the department for six years, was apparently sending racist messages to a current employee of the department.
The second, unnamed employee was immediately placed on administrative leave pending an investigation, Mata said.