Two San Jose Police Department officers associated with the racist scandal involving former cop Mark McNamara have been publicly identified.
Local news station KTVU was able to gather their names from unredacted documents. According to the report, one of them, Brandon LeTemplier, remains at the department but is currently on paid administrative leave. William Haggerty was employed at the agency for three years — from 2017 to 2020.
McNamara resigned from the department amid the discovery that he sent racist texts to other employees. It stemmed from a shooting where he shot K’aun Green, a Black college athlete, outside a Mexican restaurant in 2022.
Following the incident, McNamara used racial slurs, stating, “I hate Black people” in messages referring to Green. Other exposed messages showed McNamara using offensive language and threatening Green’s lawyer, Adanté Pointer. The victim filed a lawsuit against him and the city of San Jose last year.
McNamara officially lost his certification in November. However, KTVU reported that LeTemplier and Haggerty — who are accused of exchanging texts with McNamara about the shooting — are not prohibited from working for other departments.
In one message obtained by KTVU, Haggerty allegedly texted McNamara about Green’s defense team, saying: “Why don’t Black people have any sense in their head?” According to the report, Haggerty was sworn in as an officer in Minnesota two years ago but stepped down in November, days after the scandal made headlines.
It’s unclear if all the messages made by LeTemplier and Haggerty have been released. Angel Alexander, a lawyer who also represents Green, stressed the importance of transparency regarding law enforcement officers demonstrating racial bias.
“If people had contact with these officers, they need to know whether that contact was done with any type of underlying racial bias or animus,” Alexander told the outlet. “If you have hatred for the community that you’re serving, it’s a public safety issue.”
More racist and homophobic messages from McNamara came to light earlier this year.
“These texts are not just offensive, they speak to the vile nature of how the officer viewed K’aun the night he nearly killed him — as just another Black man who was destined for a life of poverty and crime,” Pointer said, per KRON 4. “K’aun was a college student and had never been convicted of a crime. This underscores the urgent need for comprehensive reform and accountability in our police departments.”
Last week, it was announced that officials were investigating cases McNamara was involved in, and more than 50 of them could potentially be tossed out.
“There’s five cases – low-level narcotics case – that we determined we couldn’t proceed in that we’d have to rely upon McNamara’s testimony, and we’re unwilling to do that because we take very seriously the racism that he expressed,” Santa Clara District Attorney Jeff Rosen told local news.
