A high school teacher and councilman in a small California town was assailed after insulting US service members — calling them “the lowest of our low.”
In a profanity-laced video posted on social media Friday, Gregory Salcido appears to tell a group of students in his history class at El Rancho High School in Pico Rivera that members of the military are “not talented people.”
“We’ve got a bunch of dumb s— over there,” he said. “Think about the people you know who are over there. You’re freaking stupid Uncle Louie or whatever. They’re dumb s—. They’re not high-level thinkers, they’re not academic people, they’re not intellectual people. They’re the lowest of our low.”
Salcido, 49, was apparently set off by a student wearing a Marines sweatshirt whose father is a veteran and who then secretly recorded the diatribe, local channel KTLA reported.
“You better not freaking go,” the teacher says in the recording. “Don’t wear that in here.”
He also seems to suggest only unambitious and talentless people join the military.
“If you join the military, it’s because you had no other options,” he can be heard saying. “It’s because you didn’t take care of business academically, because your parents didn’t love you enough to push you and then you didn’t love yourself enough to push yourself.”
The recording was posted on Twitter and Facebook by a woman identifying herself as a friend of the student’s mother while Salcido was in New York with his family.
“I don’t think it’s wise for me to make specific comments but I want my friends, family and students to know we are fine and we respect the rights of free expression for all individuals,” he wrote on Facebook at the time.
After returning home, he told the Los Angeles Times: “Because of the many vulgar and violent threats against my family, I do not have any comment on the situation at this time.”
On Monday, Pico Rivera council members condemned Salcido and said he had been removed from all committees on the city council, CBS Los Angeles reported.
El Rancho Unified School District officials said they were also investigating the teacher’s remarks.