Nazi flags and other hate symbols were common fixtures in some California correctional system offices before a sighting in Sacramento exploded into a public-relations disaster last fall, according to emails obtained by The Sacramento Bee.

The controversy began when a pedestrian walking near the S Street offices of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation took a video of a Nazi flag in a window and shared it on social media.

The flag was something that career corrections employees considered to be a common trophy taken from gang members in dangerous operations, according to the emails. Sometimes, officers held on to flags or other gang symbols to teach colleagues about what to look for in building a case against suspects.

“So the stuff they had on the wall is stuff that you would find in any prison (investigation) office in (the state corrections department), exception being that this was visible from the street and the viewer had no context as to why it was on the wall,” wrote David Babby, a California regional parole administrator in a message to other senior leaders on the day the video of the flag appeared on social media.

The flag soon drew attention from local and national news organizations and prompted a review of gang-related mementos displayed in public-facing offices throughout the state.

Within two days, the state corrections secretary directed employees to remove “immediately” any gang symbols they might have displayed in their offices.

Secretary Ralph Diaz in the Oct. 31 memo acknowledged that correctional officers encounter “vulgar, anti-social, gang-related” material in their daily work as he asked employees not to show the items, even if they had good intentions. “CDCR’s offices must be free of any form of discrimination and/or harassment,” he wrote.

News traveled quickly, and around the state, prison employees showed a mix of reactions. Some were outraged that a colleague had displayed a Nazi flag at a street-level office in downtown Sacramento.

“How stupid can someone be?” a prison health worker wrote in one message.

Others saw an overreaction from department brass.

“Everyone’s so damn sensitive,” a parole supervisor wrote to his peers.

Parole officer was not a white supremacist

The flag, a memento seized by a career parole officer from an operation, wasn’t meant to honor the legacy of Adolf Hitler.

It was more like a teaching tool, according to department memos. Members of white supremacist gangs, such as the Nazi Low Riders, are known to keep the red flag.

The employee, who is not named in the emails obtained by The Sacramento Bee, was counseled by senior executives about workplace discrimination. The parole officer’s teammates also were counseled, according to the messages.

The employee responsible for hanging the flag “is a person of color, and has no ties or affiliation with white supremacy or Nazis,” according to a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman.

The sequence of events that led to the system-wide review of gang symbols began when a video of the flag was posted on the online image sharing platform Imgur on the night of Oct. 25, a Friday.

By early Monday morning, associate director of division of adult parole operations Marvin Speed caught wind of it. Enough people had seen the video circulating online, he said in an email to administrators, that he would have to let the department’s public relations arm know “ASAP.” The flag was being removed as early as 9:10 that morning, Speed wrote.

Emails with the subject line “T Street Potential Protest” began to fan out internally, stoking fears of a demonstration. Assistant secretary of Communications Jeffrey Callison started looking for the owner of the video.

“I want the office inspected today by an Executive to verify there are no other inappropriate postings,” wrote Undersecretary Kathleen Allison. “Also please gather information as this may require an investigation.”

By the end of the day, the flag — along with other “gang identifiers” found in the officer’s room — were taken down, and the department had notified the governor’s office of what had happened.

CBS Sacramento broke the story later that night. And in the department’s statement to the media outlet, a spokesperson said the flag was meant for training purposes.

What California prison employees saw

The next morning, links to the TV station’s report were sent across the department to personal and private email addresses. Administrators from Riverside to Visalia urged their staff members to remove what could be considered inappropriate from their offices “effective immediately.”

“Not good in Sacramento right now... (trophy walls are not appropriate, especially when you forget to close your office blinds for the weekend),” wrote a special agent to a long list of staff members. “I guess I can share since it is the talk of the town in Sacramento and EVERYONE knows! Lesson learned.”

A Riverside supervisor said in an email that she was asked to walk around the office and look for offensive materials that afternoon.

She told coworkers that one office member would have to take down a poster with hate symbols even though it was in “proper context.” Another worker, she wrote, had an “alcohol related symbol” on his wall.

And in the San Diego District, a parole administrator wrote to staff members that while he hadn’t seen any swastikas hanging on the walls of the office, he had noticed bottles of liquor and “drug paraphernalia.”

Outside of Sacramento, prison executives directed supervisors to look into other public-facing offices and remove gang symbols.

As the week dragged on, and a local crisis snowballed into a worldwide media item, the internal emails show that staff grew increasingly frustrated with what they considered an assault on the department’s reputation.

“Oh wow,” a department nurse executive wrote, “that’s sad and shameful.”

Still others told colleagues they were upset with so-called “political correctness” that had forced the department to take the flag down

“This department is becoming exactly what I feared,” an officer at Mule Creek State Prison wrote. “We are all robots and no room for ‘appropriate’ fun or interests anymore.”

Questions were also raised among some corrections staff members about what exactly needed to be removed, following Diaz’s directive.

When a parole administrator asked if an office space — filled, she said, with white and Black figurines — would be considered offensive, Speed told her it wouldn’t.

“If someone is offended seeing a black or white figurine then too bad,” he wrote to her. “Whats next? Pics of black or white kids? Not trying to cause an uproar here, just deal with obviously offensive material like a Nazi flag..”

One sergeant expressed relief that his offices weren’t caught in the national spotlight. He told colleagues in an email chain that it “should not take too long” to remove the offensive displays that the office had accumulated. “I am just thankful it was not ME!!!”

This story has been updated to correct some names and titles of CDCR employees.

This story was originally published July 31, 2020 at 5:00 AM.