K'aun Green, the 20-year-old Contra Costa College football player whom San Jose police shot last month, tearfully addressed reporters for the first time on Thursday, announcing he and his family will file a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city.
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Green said he was "hurting inside and out" after sustaining four gunshot wounds – two to the forearm, one to the abdomen and another to the knee – outside of La Victoria Taqueria early in the morning of March 27. An unnamed San Jose police officer shot him as Green backed out of the restaurant with his arms up, holding a gun he wrested away from the friend of a man he said harassed and punched him in the face without provocation.
Doctors removed part of Green's intestines and bullet shrapnel during surgery. Green said he is unable to walk without the assistance of a walker, and he called the hospital on Wednesday when he woke up to his stomach bleeding.
Choking up, Green needed a moment to compose himself after saying he couldn't play football this season. He said he was not sure when he could play again.
"It hurts to be shot, but the real pain didn't come until my teammates came to see me, and I couldn't walk out that door with 'em," Green said in a press conference on Thursday, speaking alongside his family and attorneys Adante Pointer and Angel Alexander.
Green said he begged crews in his ambulance and at the hospital to call his parents. His mother, K'elea Thompson, when she woke up early in the morning and hadn’t heard from him.
Antwan Green – K'aun's father – said police told the parents in multiple phone calls that the department "didn't have a K'aun Green, K'aun Green wasn't involved in any incident, or they didn’t know or have any information about K’aun Green." According to the complaint, Green’s parents didn’t learn their son had been shot, or hospitalized, until Green's friend told them on Sunday night.
Green's friend had been "detained, interrogated and released," the complaint said, while Green said police handcuffed him to his hospital bed after he was taken to his own room.
"My son begged and pleaded for EMTs, the officers, nurses, for him to call his mom," Thompson said. "They would not let him call me, at all."
Green's parents said Thursday they weren’t able to see Green until two days after the shooting. Pointer previously told KCBS Radio they didn’t see him until Wednesday.
As of Thursday, they said they had not heard from the police, outside of an investigator who called to take their son’s statement about the incident. Neither the city nor the San Jose Police Department have reached out to apologize, the family said.
Green's parents said they want accountability, with Thompson demanding the officer who shot her son – a four-year veteran whom the department said is on administrative leave – be publicly identified. She, and her son, called for the officer's firing.
"I want justice," Green said. "That's all I want is justice. I feel he needs to be fired, and that he shouldn't work for any other police force."
Green said Thursday he had offers and interest from multiple Division I college football programs, including San Jose State University, whose spring game he attended hours before the shooting. In the complaint, Green's attorneys asked for a jury trial, seeking – among other damages – "special damages" including "past, present and/or future wage loss" and "income."
The 20-year-old, who dreams of playing in the NFL, has a long road back to the field. His left arm in a cast, Green said he can’t do a push-up, let alone anything else.
Green said his mental scars need healing as much as his physical ones.
"I wake up in excruciating pain, tossing and turning," Green said. "And then, on top of that, I just keep seeing, in the back of my head, just my hands. I’m looking at my hands, and there was blood all over them. I just keep seeing it, I keep seeing it, I keep seeing it, I keep seeing it."
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