Former Kaiser parent says he wouldn’t have acted on threats

The former Kaiser High School parent recorded on cellphone video screaming at, challenging and threatening the school’s head football coach and a security attendant said in state court Thursday he’s embarrassed and remorseful for what he did.

“I feel bad about my actions and how I went about (it),” Gregory Tartamella said.

Tartamella, 42, is on trial on charges of assaulting and harassing former head coach Arnold Martinez, harassing security attendant Nick Hironaka and threatening former Vice Principal Kevin Dias at the school on Sept. 18, 2017.

He admitted to what was clearly captured on the video and denied what wasn’t. The defense and prosecution have publicly released copies of the 4-1/2-minute video.

Tartamella denied hitting Martinez on the arm. The video shows Martinez dropping his keys, clipboard and other items while being confronted by Tartamella, and bending over to pick up the items during the confrontation.

“If I wanted to attack Arnold Martinez, I would’ve did it right there when he bent over,” Tartamella said.

At the point in the video where Martinez said Tartamella shoved him, Tartamella said he was gesturing with his left arm but made no contact.

He said the threat to “lay out” Dias wasn’t on the video because it never happened. Tartamella also said he had no intention to carry out his threat to blow Hiro­naka’s brains out, which was captured on video.

“I was angry and those were only words, they weren’t meant to happen,” he said.

Tartamella said he and his wife were angry because his stepson had just told them that Martinez kicked him off the team and didn’t let him have his picture taken with the other football players.

Martinez and the school’s athletic director, Nelson Chee, testified Wednesday that the boy wasn’t allowed to be with the team on picture-taking day because the boy told them he had quit the team.

A day after Tartamella confronted Martinez, Principal Justin Mew announced that the school was canceling the rest of the football season and forfeiting its remaining games. Martinez stepped down as head coach 11 days later.

Martinez, Chee and Dias testified that school officials were concerned about player safety because so few had turned out. The junior varsity and varsity teams each had 20 players or less and had to forfeit some games because of the potential for injuries.

Football parent Jessica Taufa testified that parents were upset at Martinez for not letting players join the team late, refusing to move JV players to the varsity team and for the school’s decision at the start of the season to play only two games.