SEATTLE — A Coast Guardsman formerly assigned to Group/Air Station Port Angeles pleaded guilty Thursday in a military court to faking a racist hate note so he would be transferred to another station.
Petty Officer 3rd Class Robert E. Taylor, 26, told a military judge he felt “fed up” with incidents of discrimination he experienced in the week after his arrival.
“I couldn’t walk down the street without people staring and talking and sometimes pointing fingers,” Taylor, who is black, told the judge.
“It got to a point where I couldn’t leave the apartment I was staying in by myself, and I got fed up, sir,” he said.
Taylor pleaded guilty to four of six charges against him during a court-martial that convened Thursday in the Federal Building in downtown Seattle. He requested trial by a military judge rather than a court of at least three officers.
Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Jason Hamilton is prosecuting Taylor, and U.S. Naval Reserve Lt. Mark Herrington is Taylor’s defense attorney.
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The rest of the story appears in the Friday/Saturday Peninsula Daily News.
