A retired U.S. Navy officer who was inadvertently recorded allegedly making racist and vulgar comments on a live Facebook feed is not affiliated with the U.S. Naval Academy in any capacity, military officials said Tuesday.
Retired Navy Capt. Scott Bethmann was a former official with the U.S.N.A. Alumni Association chapter in Jacksonville, Fla. He resigned from the group after the recording was discovered.
Academy officials said Capt. Bethmann “was not an employee of the U.S. Naval Academy, nor was he a member of the Naval Academy’s Admissions Board. He was not involved in any way in the admissions process or decision-making on candidate offers of admission.”
According to published reports, Capt. Bethmann and his wife were watching the news when he began speaking critically about the Black Lives Matter movement. He was heard making racist and vulgar comments before realizing he was being recorded. Capt. Bethmann turned off the recording and later closed out his Facebook account.
“We cannot tolerate racism or bigotry of any kind within our U.S. Naval Academy family,” Bruce Latta, the naval academy’s dean of admissions, said in a statement. “It completely violates our Navy’s core values and does not support the Naval Academy mission.”
Capt. Bethmann resigned from the board of the alumni association’s Jacksonville, Florida chapter. “Our board is convening an emergency meeting today to discuss our way forward,” said Caleb Cronic, president of the association’s Jacksonville chapter.
• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.
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