A Southern California teacher and city councilman caught on film calling members of the military “dumbshits” who are the “lowest of the low” has been fired from his teaching position Tuesday evening.
Aurora Villon, president of the El Rancho Unified School District Board of Education, announced Tuesday evening that the school board had reached a “unanimous decision” to fire Gregory Salcido, a history teacher at El Rancho High School and elected councilman for the city of Pico Rivera, the Los Angeles Times reported.
“His comments do not reflect what we stand for, who we are,” Villon said. “The classroom should never be a place where students feel that they are picked at, bullied, intimidated.”
Salcido’s derogatory comments about military service members made national news after a student in Salcido’s class secretly filmed him going on a vulgar tirade about the military in January.
“We’ve got a bunch of dumbshits over there. Think about the people who you know who are over there — your freaking stupid uncle Louis or whatever, they’re dumbshits,” Salcido said. “They’re not, like, high-level thinkers, they’re not academic people, they’re not intellectual people, they’re the freaking lowest of our low.”
Villon said thousands of people emailed school board members, including veterans and relatives of military members, expressing their disgust with Salcido’s comments.
A Pentagon spokeswoman, when asked about Salcido’s comments later in January, called the teacher’s remarks “very uninformed.”
Salcido received swift condemnation from his fellow city council members, who introduced a motion to censure him in February. Salcido apologized to those offended by his remarks but refused to step down from his council seat.
Even White House Chief of Staff John Kelly had some choice words for Salcido after his anti-military rant, telling him that he “ought to go to hell.”
“I just hope he enjoys the liberties and the lifestyle that we have fought for,” Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, told Fox News.