California sheriff warns officers not to join far-right extremist groups, records reveal

Training documents reviewed by the Guardian show the Orange county department is also warning about the extreme left' and Black Panthers, raising concerns about false equivalency

The sheriff's department in Orange county, California, advised its officers earlier this year not to affiliate with far-right extremist groups and warned them against engaging with white supremacist websites, according to internal documents reviewed by the Guardian.

The Orange county sheriff's department's extremism awareness" training document from February instructed officers not to share disinformation and to avoid associating with militias, QAnon, rightwing platforms like Gab and 4chan, as well as second-amendment groups or law enforcement clubs" that could be avenues for exploitation".