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GARDEN GROVE, Calif. (AP) — School officials in Orange County, California, said they will reopen an investigation into a group of high school students seen on video giving Nazi salutes last year after more racist images surfaced, according to a report Wednesday.
The initial video obtained by the Daily Beast — which posted about 8 seconds of it — shows members of the boys' water polo team at Pacifica High School in an empty room that administrative officials say was later used for an athletic banquet. The video showed about 10 boys in a stiff-arm salute while singing a Nazi marching song.
The Garden Grove Unified School District said in a statement that the footage was recorded last November but that administrators hadn't become aware of the video until March. It said the students were unsupervised at the time. The district said Monday that administrators had "addressed the situation with all students and families involved," but failed to specify what disciplinary actions it took.
The Los Angeles Times reported that since Monday officials said several other videos showing students engaged in hate speech have surfaced. Those videos will be examined as part of the district's reopened investigation. It was not immediately clear what's on the new videos or whether they included students from Pacifica High.
"This new information, which continues to unfold minute by minute, demands a school-wide call to action to address the severity of these claims to ensure hate speech never happens again," Pacifica High School Principal Steve Osborne said. "Hate speech will not be tolerated. This is not who we are."
Osborne apologized during a school board meeting Tuesday for failing to address the original video with the entire school immediately after it was brought to administrators' attention. He added that the school had been in communication with the Anti-Defamation League and the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles in an effort to expand anti-bias education for students.
It's not the first time a high school in Orange County has dealt with its students engaged in Nazi portrayals. Students from schools in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District faced suspension in an unrelated incident in March after photos emerged of them playing beer pong with cups set up in swastika formation.
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