Racist Notes Discovered On Desks Of State Union Workers At West Sacramento Office
WEST SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — Workers at the California Office of State Publishing arrived at work on Friday to find racist notes on their desks.
The notes were found around 6 a.m. on three people's desks at the Office of State Publishing in West Sacramento.
In photos shared by the workers union, two of the notes have the N-word in big lettering, while the third note had "N***** lover." Two of the workers whose desks were targeted are black, while the third worker's partner is black.
"I flipped it over and it said, do you want me to say what it said? It said N-word lover with an exclamation point in big bold letters," C.J. Brown, a warehouse worker, said.
California Highway Patrol responded to the office later Friday morning to investigate. According to the union workers CBS13 spoke to, the CHP says this is not a hate crime and that it'll be up to the HR department to further the investigation.
"I asked them, what about the next time if it's worse? They're like, 'Hey there wasn't any assault, there wasn't any battery. Take this up with your HR,'" Mike Fletcher, a heavy truck driver for the Office of State Publishing, said.
The men who say they were targeted this morning are upset but not surprised by the language used against them.
"You think the culture out here is tumultuous. You got to go in there," Fletcher said. "We are expected to just go in there do our job and not speak up about anything."
Fletcher says he did feel comfortable in his workplace until now.
"Who comes into work and has to deal with something like this? Never in my life," Brown said.
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At this point, it's unclear who's responsible for leaving the notes. CBS13 did reach out to CHP for additional information we have yet to hear back.
The union workers said there are no cameras inside the facility because the department is responsible for printing sensitive documents.
We did reach out to the Department of General Services, which oversees the state publishing office. They say they have begun an internal investigation.