Another Video Surfaces Showing Pacifica High Water Polo Team Doing Nazi Salutes

GARDEN GROVE (CBSLA) – A second video has surfaced appearing to show members of Garden Grove's Pacifica High School water polo team doing Nazi salutes, this just two days after a previous video with similar imagery sparked community outrage over the response from school officials.

The new video, shot by a former Pacifica High student sometime in 2018, shows members of the Pacifica High water polo team doing Nazi salutes at the edge of a pool.

The student, who did not want to be identified, said he witnessed team members commonly giving Nazi salutes, and after watching them do so repeatedly, he discretely shot the video.

This comes after a video posted to social media last year showing a group of students believed to be from the same Pacifica High water polo team doing a Nazi salute came to light Monday.

The video, which was shot in November 2018, was taken during an off-campus student athletics banquet, the Garden Grove Unified School District confirmed to CBS2. The eight-second video, first obtained by the Daily Beast, appears to show a group of about 10 students doing a Nazi salute and engaging in a German chant.

It was posted to Snapchat, but did not come to the attention of the district until March of this year, Garden Grove Unified said. The district would not disclose if or how the students involved were disciplined, citing federal education privacy laws.

On Tuesday night, dozens of irate parents and teachers showed up at a Garden Grove Unified School Board meeting, demanding answers. Garden Grove police sent several officers to the meeting after a handful of death threats directed at the high school were received.

"When administration first learned of the video in March, we did a disservice to the entire school community by limiting our action to the small group of students involved," Pacifica High Principal Steve Osborne told the crowd.

The district Tuesday in a statement said it is reopening its investigation into the case based on "new information, allegations and claims."

This is just the latest in a string of similar incidents across the Southland.

A controversial photo surfaced on social media March 3 showing students at an off-campus party saluting like Nazis around red plastic cups arranged to form a swastika during a game of beer pong. The party was attended by a few dozen teenagers from Newport Harbor, Costa Mesa and Estancia High schools.

The photo touched off a firestorm of criticism and prompted several community meetings. Newport Harbor High even brought in Holocaust survivor Eva Schloss, the stepsister of Anne Frank, to meet with some of the students involved.

Then in May, a 22-year-old woman was charged with putting up Nazi propaganda posters around Fullerton College and Newport Harbor High School.

Meanwhile, in April, a Los Angeles youth hockey team was suspended over a video posted to social media which showed one of its players doing a Nazi salute while others made anti-Semitic remarks.