Father in Murder-Suicide Had Blamed Kaiser for Job Harassment
New America Media, Commentary, Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Posted: Jan 28, 2009
Ervin Antonio Lupoe, who Tuesday killed his family and then himself, reached out to me with complaints that he had experienced discrimination and harassment at his workplace, Kaiser Permanente Medical Center West Los Angeles.
Those allegations now are even more alarming. Lupoe killed himself, his wife and his five children in their south Los Angeles home and left no doubt as to why he committed this horrific act. In a bitter letter to a Los Angeles TV station, the former Kaiser lab technician railed at the hospital for unjustly firing him and his wife.
There were other reports that Lupoe had been harassed by supervisors. The allegation was that some of it was racially motivated. One supervisor allegedly told Ervin Lupoe and his wife, according to the letter Lupoe left behind, “You should have blown your brains out.”
Kaiser denied the allegations and hinted that the reason for the couple’s firing involved unspecified detrimental actions.
Lupoe wasn’t the only one. This writer has received past complaints of harassment and discrimination from black employees of Kaiser, as well as a union representative there. These employee complaints of discrimination cannot be substantiated. However, they do set off loud warning bells that something went terribly wrong in the way Kaiser handled the Lupoes’ firings – and that the Kaiser management should take a long, hard look at how it handles its employee relations.
The Lupoe family tragedy is only one of several such incidents. Last October, the murder-suicide of Karthik Rajaram and his family in Porter Ranch, a bedroom community north of Los Angeles, set off the first alarm that the mounting economic wreckage could push more people over the edge.
The edge, in this case, is not just a distressed individual committing suicide but taking out his or her family, too. This horrific and desperate act has been tragically played out three times in the last two weeks in Los Angeles County. Each time a family member, apparently despondent over job loss or financial worries, killed himself and other family members. Each time the family carnage has been more gruesome.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 30,000 people kill themselves each year. The CDC noted that in a significant number of these cases, there was job loss or severe financial hardship. One agency that tracks mental health referrals in California found that the number of such referrals leaped more than 200 percent in 2008.
Nearly all of those seeking help suffered some type of financial hardship. In a grotesque irony, San Francisco Medical Center, owned by Kaiser, the Lopoes’ employer, recently reported that its own psychiatric referrals had leaped more than 400 percent in 2008. The overwhelming majority of them were related to financial distress.
The CDC expects the number of those who are severely financially strapped to rise as the economy continues to tank. Minorities have borne the brunt of the wave of job losses and home foreclosures. And mental health professionals warn that as the economy slides, they expect to see a continued jump in the number of those seeking treatment for depression.
While researchers say that unemployment alone does not cause suicide, losing a job combined with financial uncertainty, the loss of retirement savings, and the stress of overdue bills and mortgage or rent payments can create the perfect storm for an individual to feel that suicide is the only way out.
The murder-suicide of an entire family is the ultimate desperate act. And it’s a dire warning to cities and counties, health professionals and employers that a financially stressed employee or former employee represents a potential powder keg that can explode at any time.
This calls for drastically increasing funding and expansion of counseling jobs, and referral and crisis prevention hotline services. It also means making sure the general public knows where it can go to get help.
This may not have been enough to stop Lupoe from committing his heinous act. However, it could save others who are in desperate need of help. With the economy in steady free fall, it’s almost certain that there will be thousands more Americans facing unemployment who will want and need that help.
Lest we forget, when men such as Lupoe kill themselves, innocents pay the price too. Invariably those innocents are children. That’s a terrible wake-up call for us all.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press, January 2009). http://www.learnhowobamawon.blogspot.com
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User Comments
Paula Nichols on Feb 24, 2009 at 10:08:41 said:
John Brown MD it is people like you who thinks everyone has an agenda. What if the story was true. It is hard to believe that people just kill themselves and blame it on innocent organizations. Doctors like your self are some of the most arrogant people I have to deal with on a daily basis. I have never met a Doctor that was not full of themselves to the point where they can masacre someone without a thought as to how it affected another human being.
Jerry on Jan 30, 2009 at 11:00:20 said:
OK, supposely the family lied to an outside service about how much money they made, I read this from some other articles on line. But how did Kaiser get this information and how did a supervisor get this information it does not make since. If you lied to a outside service and they know you lied you would think at the most you would lose the child care benifit and possibly have to pay the money back but what did Kaiser have to do with it. Someone from the outside service would have had to given Kaiser this information which could be in violation of the deceased rights. Hopefully this is investigated by the police because Kaiser may have obtained there sourse of information illegally and maybe that's why the Deceased filed a union greivence. It would be really sad that Kaiser did not think this whole thing through before firing these employee, I think the information needs to be released to the public and not kept secret so we can all know the details of why a man and woman really lost there jobs and not what Kaiser wants to tell us. If they did something wrong they need to fess up and take the blows. They need to re-review there policy on how they handle the fireing of employees and investigating when employees file harassment cases. It Appears the person that told these two employees to shoot themselves in the head is the one that has the real problems and should have been fired. How could you speak to someone in that manner knowing that they are already hurting. Who ever this person is, they are heartless and yes what goes around will come back around. Hold on who ever you are. My heart goes out to that family and hopefully there death was not just another shooting. I hope the whole world wakes up and knows about what happen and if ever in a situation like this, get help from other sourses if you cannot find it within your job. If you feel something is wrong seek legal advise right away. Communicate with friends and family at a time like this to see you through. GOD Bless this family's tragic death and forgive them for taking there's and there children lives.
Cheryl on Jan 30, 2009 at 10:07:58 said:
I worked for Kaiser at one time and I submitted a complaint about a situation where another employee was being harassed. Nothing happen, never heard back from them and the people that were doing the harassment are still there. That person had to quit because the harassment was so bad and Kaiser seem to be ok with that. They need to follow through with there complaints and take them seriously, they need to understand that just because it's management that a employee is going up against does not make that manager right. Most managers are good but you do have some that are from the bottom of the barrell and still play high school games and are still bullies and they become bullies on the job. I'm sure there should have been better ways to handle the fireing of these two employees. They will not tell the public what is is all about so we cannot form our own opinion. If I were this family of the deceased I would make a legal case and have the whole thing looked into to make sure everything was done correctly and if not sue the pants off of Kasier. It hurts deeply when your let go from a job that you know you did not deserve such treatment and people say the deceased were probably mentally ill, well I say some of the people at kaiser that let these two be subject to wrongful treatment were also mentally ill. There is a name for people like them also. I hope they don't sleep well at night for the rest of there lives. I know someone at Kaiser had to have pushed these two employees to a very dark place for them to have done what they did. Laws need to be set in place for certain treatment on the job. Harassment is very hard to prove on the job but it does exsist every day. To all of you on the job bullies out there I hope you learn a lesson from this family's death and back off of people that get up everyday just like you to come to work. And to be subject to abuse by you is wrong and one day you will get yours, "Carma Baby" Peace out.
John Brown, Jr., M. D. on Jan 29, 2009 at 10:56:06 said:
The article irrationally accepts the contention that the job loss was, perhaps, unjustified, and that the job loss was discriminatory. It then goes on to imply the job loss was responsible for the loss of life. All of these are unproven allegations; and to imply that Kaiser bears responsibility for this senseless act is extremely irresponsible; in fact, it approaches libel. Journalism should responsibly report facts, not personal opinion (unless it is properly labeled as such). The author seems to have their own grudge and agenda, leading to what I would consider highly inflammatory and irresponsible reporting. Anyone who uses this information to form their own opinion is both gullible and naive.
Ms dejesus on Jan 28, 2009 at 19:36:24 said:
I hope Kaiser changes their policy about firing employees. I do not believe they should have been fired for a such a minor offense. From what I read the supervisor told him to go shoot himself.
-->I am not surprised , have you seen MICHAEL MOORE'S MOVIE SICKO
Please do not protect the corporation Kaiser by sweeping events and wrong doing by Kaiser under the rug.
My thoughts and prayers go out to their friends and family. May they all rest in peace.