A Fort Cavazos soldier was charged final week with arson, possession of kid pornography and vandalism after allegedly damaging property and setting a fireplace within the Texas base’s barracks final 12 months.
The soldier, Pvt. 2nd Class Javier Pantoja Tinoco, was arraigned practically a 12 months after Army.com first reported that two troopers had been suspected of setting a barracks laundry room on hearth and defacing barracks partitions with spray-painted racial slurs, male genitalia and obvious gang indicators.
Pantoja Tinoco’s cost sheet alleges he deliberately broken no less than $1,000 of army property after he drunkenly set hearth to washing machines. He was additionally found to “knowingly and wrongfully possess little one pornography,” together with no less than one video of what gave the impression to be a baby participating in sexually express conduct, in keeping with the costs.
Learn Subsequent: The Army Has Lastly Fielded Its Subsequent Technology Squad Weapons
Pantoja Tinoco pleaded not responsible to the costs and faces a courtroom martial by an enlisted panel.
“The Army completely investigated an incident involving a fireplace within the barracks on April 22, 2023,” 1st Cavalry Division public affairs wrote to Army.com in an announcement Friday.
“Because of that investigation, PV2 Javier Pantoja Tinoco was charged with possession of kid pornography, arson, damaging army property, drunk and disorderly conduct, and conduct prejudicial to good order and self-discipline, in violation of the Uniform Code of Army Justice,” the assertion mentioned.
Pantoja Tinoco joined the Army in late 2022 and is a part of the Regimental Engineer Squadron of third Cavalry Regiment.
It isn’t clear whether or not the opposite soldier who was allegedly concerned was disciplined or not, although they’re now not within the army, in keeping with the first Cavalry Division. It declined to remark additional on the unnamed soldier, citing privateness issues.
Army.com reviewed pictures of the vandalized barracks, which included the N-word written no less than thrice on completely different barracks partitions. One picture confirmed a torched washer, with spray-painted male genitalia on the rear wall.
“These folks have executed hurt to their neighborhood and made their fellow troopers really feel unsafe; they’re revealing the army has executed nothing to weed these folks out,” Kris Goldsmith, an Army veteran and CEO of Process Pressure Butler, a nonprofit centered on combating extremism within the army, instructed Army.com final 12 months. “The victims are fellow service members and should see these guys spend a number of years in [prison], and the Army must rehabilitate these guys.”
It is unclear whether or not Pantoja Tinoco has confronted any unit-level punishment, corresponding to discount in rank or further work. His court-martial is slated to start April 9.
Final month, two Marine lance corporals at Marine Barracks Washington, Hayden Pritchard and Sergio Delgado, had been charged with hate crimes associated to anti-Semitic and racist slurs they allegedly wrote inside a residence corridor on the College of Maryland final 12 months.
In a separate incident final 12 months at North Dakota’s Minot Air Pressure Base, a army household’s residence was vandalized with racial slurs, swastikas and profanity.
— Kelsey Baker is a graduate pupil at Northwestern’s Medill Faculty of Journalism, and a former active-duty Marine. Attain her on X at @KelsBBaker or bakerkelsey@protonmail.com.
Associated: 2 Months After Army Recognized Suspects Who Allegedly Painted Racial Slurs on Barracks, No Punishment But
Story Continues
