Former San Jose police officer Mark McNamara, who resigned in early November as racist text messages emerged, had his private stockpile of weapons confiscated at the time due to a restraining order for allegedly threatening to shoot a Black lawyer, according to new reporting by the Mercury News.
McNamara, who joined the force in 2017, had an arsenal of 18 firearms taken away last month amid an ongoing civil investigation into a March 2022 shooting in which McNamara wounded a Black man at a Mexican restaurant in downtown San Jose, according to court documents filed last month.
Under the terms of the probe, McNamara can’t get his guns back until May 2024.
The officer resigned on Nov. 1, two days before the “disgusting” text messages came to light, while the restraining order against McNamara was ordered on Nov. 6, the Mercury News reports.
One of the text messages that prompted the order was sent to attorney Adanté Pointer — who is representing 21-year-old K’aun Green, a junior college football player who filed the civil action after McNamara and other officers shot him several times.
The text messages, meanwhile, led to the dismissal of another unnamed San Jose officer and internal discipline for a third officer who was placed on administrative leave.
One of the messages sent by McNamara was filled with expletives and included casual usage of the N-word.
“The other day this n— lawyer is like Mr. McNamara, you know we can still find you guilty of excessive force right? I’m like, hmmm yeah then (what) happens?? … Think I give a f— what y’all n— think?!???? I’ll shoot you too!!!!!” McNamara wrote after giving a deposition shooting Green.
Pointer has not commented publicly on the matter since the text messages were released to the public on Nov. 3 as a result of a separate internal investigation into McNamara, but officials have so far kept a tight lid on the details of the separate probe.
After the city declined to represent McNamara in the civil lawsuit, local attorney Susan Coleman assumed the role of defending the officer in the racially charged case.
Black leaders in San Jose said they took McNamara at his word and determined the messages he sent were a serious threat to the community.
“Anyone with power or authority who abuses it needs to be stripped (of it),” Rev. Jethroe Moore, president of the local NAACP chapter, said in an interview on Thursday. “Clearly, there’s something mentally unstable there. Because gun violence is not a laughing matter.”
McNamara sent other texts that declared, “I hate Black people,” while mocking Green’s shooting at La Victoria Taqueria on March 27, 2022.
On the night of the incident, Green was inside the taqueria with his friends when a random man walked in and started a fight with Green and his friends.
The assailant briefly left the establishment and returned with two other men, one of whom flashed a gun, which triggered a struggle.
Someone at the scene called police as Green broke up the fight and “wrestled the gun away,” Pointer said previously.
By the time Green exited the restaurant with the gun still in hand, McNamara had arrived from about 800 feet away at another crime scene. The officer opened fire, hitting Green multiple times.
“N— wanted to carry a gun in the Wild West … Not on my watch,” McNamara said in one of the text messages to fellow officers, which he sent a day after the shooting.
After the shooting, McNamara claimed he thought Green was linked to a homicide that happened less than a mile away, but police eventually arrested another suspect, leading to Green’s lawsuit in 2022 for monetary and punitive damages.
In another message, McNamara suggested the shooting was a boon for Green as he would benefit financially from it.
“They should all be bowing to me and bringing me gifts since I saved a fellow n— by making him rich as f—. Otherwise, he woulda lived a life of poverty and crime.”
San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan called McNamara’s texts “vile” and said the “language and conduct does not represent the many officers in our department who work every day to keep us all safe.”
