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Following his racist text messages being exposed after a controversial shooting, police official Mark McNarma has submitted his resignation.
Chief Police Anthony Mata informed the Bay Area News Group that McNamara joined the San Jose Police Department in 2017.
According to Mata, the department found 10 pages of McNarma’s racial messages, some including “I hate Black people” and “Why don’t Black people have any sense in their head?”
The department’s internal affairs were investigating McNarma for an unrelated matter, resulting in the disclosure that he “had sent disgusting text messages that demonstrated racial bias.”
Mata could not reveal the nature of the criminal investigation; at this moment, “criminal charges have not been filed nor are anticipated at this time.”
Mata confirmed that Internal Affairs assisted with the revelation of the messages. He added their aim was to “thoroughly investigate all questionable conduct, and is why we made investments in a new early warning system.”
Racist words come after shooting
On March 27, 2022, McNarma shot and wounded K’aun Green, a Black football player at Contra Costa College, after an altercation inside an eatery near San Jose State University.
Green was helping deescalate the situation by breaking up the fight and then confiscating a handgun when he was shot by McNarma. Green was taken into emergency surgery, where he sustained injuries to his arm, leg, and abdomen.
Text messages resurfaced of McNarma texting two unnamed individuals about the shooting of Green. A day after the shooting, McNarma sent a text referring to Green with a racial slur.
In one text, dated a day after the shooting, McNamara wrote, “Ni**er wanted to carry a gun in the Wild West,” with a second text reading, “Not on my watch haha.”
The insults and degrading messages did not stop in 2022
McNarma continued to speak about the situation a year later.
In June 2023, more messages emerged, while the City Attorney’s Office and Green’s legal team interviewed McNarma.
In one message, McNarma stated that Green’s legal team “should all be bowing to me and bringing me gifts since I saved a fellow (racist expletive) by making him rich as (expletive). Otherwise, he woulda lived a life of poverty and crime.”
Green’s lawyer, Adanté Pointer, stated that the messages proved that McNarma’s motive “was driven by racial animus.”
President Steve Slack of the San Jose Police Officers’ Association confirmed that the investigation “is a disconcerting reminder that not everyone has the moral compass necessary to be in the law enforcement profession… This behavior is beyond unacceptable, and we condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”
City leaders have supported Mata’s decision with the case, as he has “made it clear last year when [he] expanded [the] investigation systems that [they] would be proactive and transparent in identifying patterns of policy violations.”
Mayor of San Jose City, Matt Mayan, stated, “there is nothing more sickening than a person in power abusing their position.”
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