As far as you opinions of who should and should not get disability retirement – good luck with that. I understand there are still patients who want to diagnose and treat their own cancers. Disability claim law is sufficiently established and non-intuitive that they have specialists in the field. You can’t just come in and say who you think should get something and be correct. That’s why we have lawyers.

And remember, Law is just a history degree. The practitioners in a legal field are the ones familiar with the history, the trends and the current rules on a particular legal subject. I’m not a specialist there but I’ve seen and heard enough to believe there may well be an issue that bears a referral to an expert. And I wouldn’t be surprised or upset should a disability claim be established. This is just what those cases present like.

So it just doesn’t matter what you want and what you think. Life doesn’t work that way.

If an employer engages an employee who suffers damage due to the employment – even involving a pre-existing condition – there is an issue of service related disability. It is an expense of your business that you excessively wear and damage your workers. I don’t know if he has a case or not but I’m telling you you need look no further than CHP management and CDCR to see routine grants of service related stress disability awards. Too Bad, So Sad.

I rather think you’re too emotionally wrapped up in the “racist” red flag. Thus my curiosity of your occupation and training.

You might turn more curiosity of what was it that made this candidate more appealing than whoever else wanted that job when he applied.

I know many employers who want to hire alcoholic alpha males for certain types of jobs. I’m not saying anything about Mr. Serna, but do you really think hard drinking, hard living men are not sought after for certain occupations? And exactly what do you know about police work??

Mind you, I’m not completely disagreeing with you either. I am trying to remind you that he would have been vetted by people you probably approve of and was found to be peachy keen for the job at one time. I’m afraid you think all these issues and problems are easy and black and white. I think you believe this man is just evil and must have been hired and retained by maniacal Superintendents and Board Members. Well not likely. Have you ever hired and fired adults? Even as part of a committee? For executive positions? I have. Have you seen people lose their minds on the job and have to resign or get fired from six figure positions? I have for decades. Does that mean their hiring was always a mistake? No, not always. People fail for lots of reasons, when they no longer serve their purpose you get rid of them. You try not to run an employment situation that burns people. At least I think as a matter of morality you do. A whole lot of people disagree with me on that last part. Some people believe workers are to be consumed on the job and discarded. I don’t want people to be harmed by their service to me or may organization. And that means sometime you dismiss them while finding them another job before they really get hurt.

Anyway, Serna sounds like a nice guy from the introduction by Katy.

The discussions are so much more interesting and valuable that way.

You don’t just throw these people out with the trash after decades of service and dismiss them as being horrible people. You do. Decent people don’t.

They honestly think there’s no connection to the medical issues and their working conditions. Fortunately we have legal counsel and consulting medical professionals to explain it to them.

That’s why we have service related disability. I hope Serna seriously considers filing for it.

Better get it straight that you don’t own the minds or the affections of other people. They really don’t have to invite you to their birthday party.

Since we are engaging – are you a student? Are you even college educated? What major? If I’m to take your point seriously I need to have some reference of where your experience and training comes from.

So far your postings seem childlike, emotional, needy. The fact that you use what purports to be your real name to attack Mr. Serna gives you not one whit of credibility. Who are you to mock the retiring chief of police? (That’s rhetorical – you certainly can mock anybody you please, but why should we be impressed?) What is in your name anyway?

Public discourse is for grown ups, not children.

I find that kind of charming.

They’ve come to the same conclusion in half a generation as generations of my black ancestors about taking up with low-lifes. We got the same lectures about “us” and “them” by age 5. There was reinforcement over the years. Violence broke out about hairstyles in the ’60s. The older generation didn’t appreciate freak flags.

We figured out the bad hair thing and the other beefs the old folks had were really proxies for something else. In law we have the concept of moral turpitude – a “willingness to do evil”. And a willingness to justify it. At least that’s what our elders thought they were protecting us from (of course we know now they were and they did).

Back to the thread. Livegreen mentions that Serna will catch it from the family.. And implies that his family will take this situation exactly as we non-family will. Don’t be so sure. Yes it’s upsetting to get yourself fired and to have your breadwinner get himself fired. But don’t assume that his family will react the way you do to it’s older members saying something (not recorded so we don’t know what was said) intemperate. We all have family that say things the way they see it or think it. We may know things about what they’ve been through that are not general knowledge. You don’t throw out family easily – and you accept people as they are, for reasons that make sense to you.

So yes I’ve heard family (& friends) of different ethnics express disgust with typical behavior of various subgroups. They have good reasons for their opinions and a right to express them. Do I sometimes have either a more temperate opinion or want to point out things – yes. I’m more on the ground than certain other ethnic relatives/friends and can (in my experienced opinion) better discern between shades of people and personalities then they can. Or I may be better able to explain and understand the (logical) reasons for a behavior.

The point is I can let them rant and poke a hole in their logic and experiences sometimes. But I understand that people are entitled to feel the way their experiences dictate. And I have no right to complain. People are the sum of their experiences.

So if a relative goes off on people I let them do it. Been happening since I was 4. Not all my friends’ families liked me when I was in (public) school with them – at least at first. That’s their problem and you give them their space and their home, and stop wanting everybody to love you – it’s not realistic.

I wish Serna well. He won’t be the last to lose it working in OUSD. He and his family get their privacy now. But he is out, and now let’s move on to the next lucky candidate for police chief. (Didn’t the chief before Serna leave under exciting circumstances also?)

The way it is he loses his job (as he should) and everybody moves on.

The irony of course is that Mr. Sarna’s wife is African American and his kids biracial. Why he made such stupid comments that apply to his own family only he knows. But I can guarantee that he will be paying for this for some time to come, and in a much more intimate and prolonged setting than here.

People who we hire to handle feral and destructive people are going to have reactions to those people. It doesn’t matter what race or sex your employees are. If you operate a war zone you don’t get to be surprised when your warriors start having problems being as nice as you (who are not in the trenches) would like them to be. They might even drink.

Right or wrong has nothing to do with it. It’s a fact of life.

We do use force to restrict on the job mutterings of politically incorrect words – as shown by this thread. That is all you can expect.

If we wanted to keep an Ozzie and Harriet world we would not have legislated divorce on demand and cradle to grave welfare. We did so. Now we have fatherless boys of all ages tearing up the town – and guess what, you’re no longer going to see the whole town turning up at sports events anymore. They are now too dangerous to attend and only the lower class are going to be going to the “games”.

As far as the “Oakland Cops”, you’re not going to have a lot of that to worry about either because California is de-policing the urban areas at a rapid rate. Soon Police services will be unavailable except for shots fired situations. Oh, there will be private (or “special”) police available to the wealthy or powerful in one form or another. But you will wait a very long time to have police respond to your calls.

Those with assets, capital and education are relocating away from the “urban” areas. Retirees are leaving if they have a good income stream. Find old newsreels of Oakland from the ’50s and see what you no longer have, regardless of race.

Complaining about “racist views” is childish. Wake up and smell the coffee. It’s a survival thing now. We use experiences and information to survive. I saw the news this morning with film of Mexicans fighting in the stands and parking lots from the latest local Ball Game. With the publicity this year about savagery at the stadiums do you think decent people will take their kids to these games again? Is that racism? Does it matter if it is?

Brave New World.

For the uninitiated, that’s a reference to the new society we’ve made for ourselves where people stay in their birth society, living with, shopping with, mating with, taking school with and working with only their kind with no social (or occupational) mobility. Distinct language/diction helps keep everybody in their place as well as lots of tribal dress. This is what we have done since the “Great Society” programs of the mid-’60s.

The Pete Serna issue that started this thread consists of his detractors (I suppose) bemoaning his bad attitude. My issue with all this is – of course. Anyone responsible for public safety at OUSD is going to get issues in a hurry – and if you do drink more than you should, no telling what brain farts will pop out. Is our problem people like Serna (who I rather suspect would have done anything to please his employers) or is it really these urban warfare conditions that get teachers mugged at gunpoint across the street from school by youngbloods with no fear of the consequences?

I remember being yelled at by poor whites as I walked home from school in the 4th grade – up the hill to the more expensive neighborhoods with views of the bay that the poor whites couldn’t afford. Let me tell you, white liberals have done far more damage than poor white “racists” ever could have – I’ve seen it. The “racists” were never out match – we had guns and we had education, nerve and smarts. The white liberals take far more trouble to defeat. White liberals want control and domination (like Pelosi & Co’s domination of SF politics).

You’ll probably want to respond with KKK stories so I’ll preempt the point. Other ethnics & groups were hated and feared more than blacks were – for example Jews, Catholics, Chinese, Mormons etc. “Racism” cannot stop the rise of any group. It’s only an excuse for someone’s own failure. And the people that bleat about “racism” are covering for their own or somebody’s failure. Much of my family and friends and classmates of all races & religions beat detractors at their own games. And we had fun rubbing some noses into it. Not everybody and not at equal speeds, and not at every subject at the same time. But enough to make life enjoyable. Even now people who don’t know me occasionally use that phrase “you can’t….”.

But it’s clear that children and adults acting like children who hide their own failure behind complaints of being victims of “racism” are just losers and dullards. We should be teaching that to the black chillun’ in public schools. The other ethnics seem to already understand.