San Jose Police Must Be Held Accountable for Killing Man in a Spray of Bullets, Running Him Over, and Turning Downtown into a War Zone

Pictured above: memorial set up for Mohamed Husien near site of incident in San Jose.

The video footage of the police savagely killing Mohamed Husien on Julian Street on January 21, 2026 should outrage anyone who cares about the people of San Jose and the sanctity of life. The clip shows Husien running away from officers then suddenly, and viciously, is run over by an SJPD vehicle that accelerated to hit him. While on the ground, police then unload a spray of bullets, some of which can be seen jolting his lifeless body.

Despite the viscerally brutal nature of the killing, the homicide was not met with condemnation or even any acknowledgement that the murder, and how it was committed, should be examined. The police used a vehicle as a lethal weapon. The police sprayed countless bullets in a highly trafficked residential area, with people sitting in their cars and standing without protection in the area.

An officer was injured in events preceding the killing, and that, along with the alleged crimes committed by Mohamed Husien, were the only aspects of the disastrous incident that was commented on by the police department, the city manager, and the mayor. They refused to answer why it is acceptable to run over a person. They refused to answer why so many bullets were fired, or why putting other civilians in danger was justifiable. They refused to say if taking a life of a 30 year old man means anything at all to them.

San Jose’s police department administrators and the city’s elected leaders have an intentionally erased memory of numerous police shootings and killings. The city, just days prior, agreed to pay K’aun Green, a young Black man, 8 million dollars in a civil suit for police illegally shooting him downtown in 2022. That involved officer was found to have texted to others officers that he “hated” Black people.

That SJPD is even beyond reproach, that any action they take is inherently justified and celebrated, and thus cannot be questioned, is a profound insult to those in San Jose who have endured those injuries, and those families whose loved ones were taken by them. And it is a tacit threat to our collective community - law enforcement in San Jose will be allowed to kill with impunity.

Our community cannot accept police gunning down and running over a person in downtown without any accountability. At a time when the country is in a national outcry over law enforcement killings from Minnesota, we must not ignore the lethal violence that is being perpetrated law enforcement in our streets.