Update: In response to the controversy surrounding his remarks, Sarna has announced his retirement.
Pete Sarna, the chief of the Oakland Unified School District's police department, has been placed on paid administrative leave while district officials look into allegations that he repeatedly used racial slurs against African American and Asian American officers after a day of drinking at a charity golf tournament.
As the group was headed home afterward through the Caldecott Tunnel, [the complainant's attorney Joe] O'Sullivan said, Sarna [who is white] turned to an African American sergeant and began cursing him, saying no blacks should be allowed to live in Orinda and that "the only good n- is a dead n- and they should hang you in the town square to prevent any other n- from coming in the area."
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The attorney said the outbursts continued when they reached a white sergeant's home in Lafayette, where Sarna allegedly directed insults at his colleague's children. He let loose with more slurs at an Asian American officer as he was being driven to his home, O'Sullivan said.
The other officers in the car were appalled by Sarna's behavior and filed a formal complaint against him. When word of the complaint got back to Sarna, he allegedly tried to quash the investigation. "He acted like a mafia guy and isolated the African American [officer]," O'Sullivan told ABC 7, "[and] told him nothing had happened, never happened, and there's been subtle intimidation."
This is not the first time Sarna has gotten in trouble after a night of drinking. The Oakland Tribune reports:
Sarna was a lieutenant in the Oakland Police Department when he was tapped by then Attorney General Jerry Brown in December 2007 to become deputy director of the state Department of Justice Division of Law Enforcement, where he commanded a 1,300-strong force. But Sarna resigned in August 2007 after he crashed his state vehicle in Walnut Creek and was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence.
Sarna, whose wife is African American, was hired by to run the Oakland School Distrcit's police department in 2009 and is widely seen as an innovator willing to directly engage with the Oakland community. He organized a summer program for Oakland youth put on by the department where he organized volunteers to build play structures, sports fields and a rock climbing walls.
Sarna also instituted a system where students could send anonymous text messages to police about dangerous or illegal activities going on at school without fear of getting in trouble themselves.