Arkansas-Pine Bluff's K'aun Green could receive $8 million settlement after being shot by police

In March 2022, Arkansas-Pine Bluff football player K’aun Green was shot multiple times by a San Jose (Calif.) police officer outside a Bay Area restaurant. Green’s attorneys from Pointer & Buelna, LLP claimed Green had just disarmed a gunman inside the restaurant and was surrendering when police opened fire.

After disarming the gunman, and with police on the scene, Green reportedly attempted to walk backward through the restaurant’s door with the gun pointed upward as a sign of surrender when a San Jose police officer shot him four times.

Police were reportedly already on high-alert due to an unrelated homicide investigation in the nearby area. Green subsequently filed a civil rights lawsuit against the San Jose police after the incident, accusing the police of wrongfully shooting him. He alleged that he suffered serious injuries to his left arm, left leg and abdomen, as well as emotional distress.

In September, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Green’s lawsuit could proceed to trial. However, on Dec. 24, The Mercury News reported that the “San Jose City Council could approve an $8 million settlement at its Jan. 13 meeting.”

The police officer involved, Mark McNamara, argued that he was entitled to qualified immunity, a doctrine that protects government officials from being personally sued for money damages unless they violated a person’s clearly established constitutional or statutory rights. A Bay Area judge later ruled that the evidence warranted a jury trial.

“Because a reasonable jury could find, on the basis of the district court’s assumed facts, that McNamara used excessive force when he shot a surrendering Green, and the law was clearly established at the time of the incident, the district court did not err in denying McNamara’s motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity,” Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw wrote.

McNamara resigned in November 2023 after multiple racist text messages of his surfaced. The texts, which were alleged to be from McNamara, included a racial slur and racist language. In one text, McNamara reportedly wrote, “I hate Black people.”

K’aun Green, who was 20 at the time of the shooting, was a former star football player at Oakland-area McClymonds High School. After undergoing multiple surgeries stemming from the shooting, Green was offered a scholarship at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.

Green, a 6-foot-4 and 258-pound junior defensive end, recorded 12 tackles and 1.5 sacks for the Golden Lions this past season. After rehabbing from the shooting, he is pursuing a kinesiology degree.

“It’s a very exasperating thing to go through,” Green said of the incident, per Black Enterprise. “But it just showed me that nothing is insurmountable.”