Pickup truck flying Nazi flag seen in California

California has seen several incidents relating to Nazi symbolism this year

A pickup truck flying a Nazi flag was spotted in Empire, California. (Sacramento Radical Education / Twitter)

A pickup truck flying a Nazi flag has been spotted east of San Francisco in Empire, California, a left-wing group has said.

The “working-class political education” group Sacramento Radical Education tweeted four undated images of the truck close to Modesto late on Sunday night, local time.

The pictures showed a blue pickup truck flying the flag of the German Third Reich with two people who couldn’t be identified sitting in the vehicle.

Just over 4,100 people lived in Empire at the time of the 2010 census. It’s located in Stanislaus County and is included in the Modesto Metropolitan Area.

In a statement to The Independent, Amy Collier Carroll, the Director of Legislative Affairs and Communications in Stanislaus County, said: “The Stanislaus County Sheriff’s crime analysts are looking into this matter and investigating the validity of the image posted online. We take incidents like this seriously but were not made aware of this. We have received no crime report or call from any resident notifying law enforcement.”

California has seen several incidents relating to Nazi symbolism this year.

A teacher Rio Americano High School in Sacramento north of Empire was investigated in May after showing a Nazi flag during a lesson.

The San Juan Unified School District said the flag was shown among other German flags but didn’t identify the teacher or indicate what was being taught.

“The Nazi flag is a long-standing symbol of hate and does not represent the culture and values of our school or our district,” the district said. “The symbolism of these flags is deplorable and we denounce it – hate has no place at our schools.”

A swastika was drawn on a synagogue in February. The incident occurred in Freemont in the San Francisco Bay area.

That same month, antisemitic graffiti, including swastikas, were spray-painted on a Jewish fraternity house at Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo.

A series of planned “White Lives Matter” rallies across the US flopped in April, with meagre turnout and counter-protests outnumbering rally-goers as police broke up scuffles and made arrests during clashes.

A march Huntington Beach south of Los Angeles seemed to have garnered the largest number of far-right white supremacists but they were outnumbered by more than 200 counter-protesters and the event ended in a fracas.