CBS2 Investigation: College Security Guard Leaves Trail Of Racism And Hate
[WARNING: Some of the images in this video may be offensive to some readers.]
IRVINE (CBSLA.com ) — A 31-year-old man who patrols two Orange County college campuses posted pro-Nazi and anti-black sentiments on the Internet, according to CBS2 investigative reporter David Goldstein.
Carlos Vazquez works as a parking officer at the University of California, Irvine, and is also a public safety officer at Golden West College in Huntington Beach.
Goldstein discovered that Vazquez, using the handle "clos_vaz" on Instagram, posted pictures of swastikas and Adolf Hitler, along with photos of African Americans with racially insensitive comments.
One photo, which depicted a black mother with two children in her arms, had the caption, "Mammy, when is daddy coming home from prison? I miss seeing him beat you and I miss how he made us hungry."
A photo of a young black boy had the caption, "Waking up in juvenile jail. It's in their blood."
Goldstein also found two pictures in which it appeared Vazquez pasted images of his own son and daughter in Hitler's arms.
Wrote clos_vaz: "Proud father moment when my daughter met the great fuhrer."
Another picture of Hitler and the children had a caption that read, "I love how attentive my kids are when it comes to real WW2 history."
Goldstein said Vazquez's Instagram account also had an image of a swastika over a baby's diaper and of a swastika drawn in mustard on a hamburger.
The caption read, "I will have the Nazi burger easy on the Jew sauce."
Melissa Carr of the Orange County Anti-Defamation League said the pictures in which it's believed Vazquez included his children may be the biggest concern.
"To me, the pictures of his children, presumably, being exposed to this hate is troubling. That brings up the issue of hate being learned. Hate comes from home," she said.
UC Irvine students of all races were shocked by the images.
"They're just really horrible. Offensive," a man said.
"Even though I might not be [Jewish] or African American, I still find it offensive. The fact that somebody in our college thinks that way is just horrible to me," a woman said.
"It really hurts," Vanessa Cuffee said through tears. "That just ruined my whole day."
When Goldstein confronted Vazquez about the pictures, the man had little to say.
Asked if he was a Nazi sympathizer, Vazquez said, "Sir, I have no comment."
Goldstein said that after his brief conversation with Vazquez, the man's Instagram account went private, and a few minutes after that, the entire page was apparently deleted.
Cathy Lawhon, a UCI spokeswoman, denounced the pictures, but said it's not a violation of any rules since they were posted on Vazquez's personal account.
"As ill as it may make us to look at some of these things, we do have freedom of speech in this country," she said.
But Jon Arnold, a public safety officer with Golden West College, took immediate action after he was shown the controversial pictures — including one with Vazquez in uniform watching a Hitler video in the security office.
Arnold said that in his mind, Vazquez's actions violated school policy.
"This officer is going to be put on administrative leave immediately," he said. "He's crossed the line in just these photos, and the captions that go along with them indicate some type of level of prejudice or racial bias, so that's not acceptable at all."
