San Jose facing lawsuit over police shooting
K'aun Green, 20, speaks publicly for first time since an officer shot him four times on March 27
SAN JOSE >> K'aun Green is suing the city of San Jose, saying he was wrongfully shot by police and later criminalized after a taqueria brawl during which he disarmed a man he feared might shoot him and his friends.
Speaking publicly for the first time since being shot four times by a police officer in the early- morning hours of March 27 in the doorway of a La Victoria restaurant near San Jose State University, the former high school football star vowed to pursue justice and bounce back from his injuries to continue his college playing career.
“In all honesty, I'm in pain. I'm hurting inside and out,” the 20-year-old Oakland resident said during an April 7 Zoom news conference Joined by his team of attorneys, he was wearing what appeared to be a wrap or cast on his left arm. “They treated me like a criminal even though I saved my friends' life … I never thought I would be in this position, never did anything to put myself in this position.
“It's still surreal to me. It just hurts to know I can't play football this year, (but) I'm going to try my hardest to make a comeback.”
His attorneys, Adanté Pointer, Patrick Buelna and Angel Alexander, allege police gave Green no time to follow their orders to drop the gun in the seconds between his emergence from the restaurant, his back facing officers, and when he was shot. That contention is the crux of a federal civil rights and excessive-force lawsuit they filed Thursday against the city of San Jose and the yet-tobe-named officer who shot Green.
“My client Mr. Green was not the person who brought that gun to the restaurant that night, was not the person endangering everyone's lives,” Pointer said. “Instead he was a person who was the victim, a victim-turnedhero, who was victimized again by the San Jose Police Department.”
Green's attorneys also complained how Green was handcuffed to his hospital bed, even after it was clear that he did not bring the gun to the restaurant, and noted that police said recently that there were no plans to arrest or charge him.
Green is a former McClymonds High School star quarterback who was attending Contra Costa College and fielding college scholarship offers to play linebacker and defensive end. San Jose police declined to comment on the lawsuit, citing that it is pending litigation, and the City Attorney's Office also declined to comment on similar grounds.
In a news conference last week, San Jose Police Chief Anthony Mata defended his officers, saying Green refused orders to drop the handgun he was holding and that it was impossible
in the moment for officers to know his role. He added that the five officers on the steps leading to the eatery were working the scene of a fatal shooting nearby and were grappling with the possibility the shooter might be there.
“The officer knew that a homicide with a firearm had just occurred and that the suspect with the firearm had fled and could be in the immediate area. The officer knew that the person coming out of the restaurant was holding a gun and pointed it at others,” Mata said. “The officer did not know who brought the gun to the restaurant.”
Police released excerpts of security-camera footage
showing the brawl unfolding, and a video recorded by a witness shows the five officers walking up the restaurant steps with guns drawn, followed soon after by a man dressed in a black shirt backing out of the front door holding what appears to be a handgun in his left hand.
As the man — since identified as Green — starts to turn around to face them, one of the officers opened fire.
Pointer and his firm tell a different story, saying the whole sequence began as Green and his friends were waiting for their food when a man picked a fight with Green. The attorneys said the unknown man punched Green in the face and the two wrestled to the ground.
The attorneys say someone with the man Green was fighting pointed a handgun at Green's head, prompting Green to wrest away the gun and fend off their attempts to take it back. They added that Green was walking backward toward the front door and eluding the grasps of his attackers, with the handgun pointed up in the air, when he encountered the officers outside.
“Within mere seconds of arriving on the scene and without giving any sort of reasonable warning or opportunity to comprehend and comply with any orders, a San Jose police officer shot K'aun four times just after he had heroically protected himself and everyone in the restaurant from the gunmen,” the lawsuit reads.
Green said April 7: “The only thing that was on my mind was getting out of there safely. Just to go home. I didn't want anything bad to happen.”
He was hit twice in the left arm, once in his left knee and once in his abdomen. His lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, also states that Green's “dream of playing Division I football and being drafted into the National Football League are in jeopardy.”
Green recalled being in an ambulance and trying to reach his parents. Green's mother, K'elea Thompson, and his father, Antwan Green, described frantically trying to find out where their son was — knowing only that he was in San Jose to attend a football scrimmage at the university — but getting no answers. They said they didn't get to see their wounded son until more than 48 hours later.
“That was one of the worst days of our lives. Not knowing where your child is, not understanding what's going on,” Antwan Green said. “They treated us unfairly and they broke our hearts, they broke our son's heart.”
“No one should have to hear from social media or other sources that their son has been shot down and is in a hospital,” Thompson said. “We are praying for justice for my son.”
The attorneys also took issue with how no other officer opened fire. At the news conference, Assistant Chief Paul Joseph said each officer makes an individual assessment on whether to fire a weapon. Joseph said a factor for the officer who did shoot — a four-year member of SJPD who has not been publicly identified — was being at the front of the formation, closest to Green and the handgun.
The officer who shot Green has been placed on administrative leave while the Police Department and the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office investigate the shooting.
Alexander and the legal team are calling for the unedited release of security videos and officer body camera footage from the fight and shooting; Mata said the Police Department plans to comply with state law compelling the release of such videos within 45 days of a critical incident.
“We demand transparency, we demand accountability,” Alexander said, “and we demand justice for Mr. Green and his family.”