By Linh Nguyen
SAN JOSE– As police officers from the San Jose Police Department have patrolled at peaceful protests in downtown San Jose, multiple video footages show Officer Jared Yuen as the primary aggressor against protestors, appearing ready to go on the attack.
The police chief—after first excusing the officer—said Yuen is under investigation.
The video footage shows SJPD officers ushering a crowd of unarmed protestors off a street. The officers are in full protective gear, armed with batons and guns. While most of the other officers appear nonviolent, four different videos capture Yuen appearing excited to attack and being the first aggressor.
In one video, as the officers are clearing protestors out of the street, Yuen is moving about more energetically and quickly than his colleagues, yelling “Let’s get this m***********!”
here’s another video with the same guy screaming “let’s get this motherfucker” as if it were a game. #sanjoseprotest #GeorgeFloyd #SJPD #PoliceBrutality #PoliceViolence #NoJusticeNoPeaceProsecuteThePolice #resist #BlackLivesMatter #NotOneMore pic.twitter.com/YkuXtFwmfZ
— bowie (@bowiezamudio) May 30, 2020
In another video from the same scene, Yuen is captured smiling and licking his lips, as if he “seems to be enjoying shooting people with rubber bullets,” according to the tweet.
san jose protest. one of the cops seems to be enjoying shooting people with rubber bullets even licks his lips. disgusting. #sanjoseprotest #goergefloyd #BlackLiveMatter #PoliceBrutalityPandemic #REVOLUTION #icantbreathe #resist #NotOneMore #policeviolence pic.twitter.com/txGM0C9CSx
— bowie (@bowiezamudio) May 30, 2020
In the background, protestors verbally react to Yuen’s actions, yelling, “This is funny to them! They are smiling! They have smiles on their faces!”
In one statement, one of the protestors refers directly to Yuen, pointing him out as the one in the middle and saying, “This guy thinks this is funny.”
In another video that appears to be from a different scene, Yuen holds a gun and yells, “Shut up, b****!” at a protestor.
2️⃣2️⃣ San Jose, CA: hard to figure out what's going on here – a clearly-amped officer shouts "SHUT UP, BITCH!" to a protestor, then something happens and the police bum-rush everyone
— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) May 30, 2020
While the protestors are yelling at the officers, they do not appear to be physically attacking them. It was not until Yuen fired the first bullet that prompted officers and protestors to respond
violently.
After those videos were shared to Twitter and went viral, a screenshot supposedly from Yuen’s Instagram also surfaced, in which Yuen was issuing an apology.
The post read, “I apologize. You’ve done stupid s*** too, you can’t judge a person from a 10 second video. I’ve worked very hard for SJPD. I’ve talked to chief Garcia and I’m not going to lose my job over one stupid thing. It won’t happen again.”
However, according to the San Jose city officials, the apology post was fake.
“Our forensic analysts have worked with Facebook/Instagram to have the post deleted and the account/user deactivated,” said San Jose City Manager Dave Sykes. “The post seemingly was intended to be malicious. It does not reflect the views of the city of San Jose or the San Jose Police Department.”
Yuen has not publicly spoken about the videos. He has been moved to off-street duty while an investigation against him launches.
Chief Eddie Garcia regretted and apologized for his initial statement when the videos surfaced, in which he said, “I know Jared and he’s a good kid who made a mistake (and) let his emotions get the better of him.”
In Garcia’s follow-up response a few days later, he said, “I should not have said that he’s a good kid. Now I know the officer personally, and he’s worked very hard for this department… at the end of the day, the actions were unprofessional, they’re not going to be tolerated, they’re going to be investigated. The officer will be held accountable for his actions.”
Garcia said the investigation against Yuen will take time because the department needs to review hundreds of hours of body camera footage.
Protests in San Jose have been relatively peaceful otherwise, disregarding “agitators” who commit violent acts and destroy property.
“We’ve seen too many episodes in which people have exploited the cover of peaceful protests to commit violent acts and destroy the city in various ways,” said San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo.
Garcia concurred.
“Your officers endured an onslaught of violence directed at them in an unprecedented attempt by some to destroy parts of this city that no San Jose officer has seen before,” the mayor said.
Garcia also said, “The protests aren’t being met with force. The violence against our officers is what’s being met with force.”
The video footage and news reports show otherwise.
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