Amid the outcry over videos depicting high school students raising arms in Nazi salute as they sang a Nazi march, death threats have been made against students "not even involved in this situation," the Garden Grove Unified School District revealed Tuesday.
Police officers were stationed outside Pacifica High School Tuesday, where some students and staff were present, though fall classes do not begin until next weekend.
"This is a crisis for our community," declared a statement issued by the district Tuesday afternoon.
The statement also said the school and district would reopen and widen the investigation into the Nazi symbolism incident, which occurred last November "in an unsupervised room of a banquet facility" off campus where members of a team were to hold an end of season social event.
The video surfaced Monday when it was posted by the Daily Beast website. The publication did not reveal its source. The district indicated that the video had been shared via a temporary posting on social media.
Since then, two additional videos have surfaced. In one, students in the pool deck appear to make a Nazi salute. In the other, a confederate flag can be seen draped on the shoulders of one student in a group.
Public speakers Tuesday evening decried the display of offensive symbolism and implored the district to get to the root of it.
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Pacifica High School Principal Steve Osborne was also expected to speak.
"Pacifica High School Administration realizes it did not respond to the incident with the gravity it deserved," according to the district statement.
