Pepper balls, rifle bullets, drones: University of California police green light for military-grade weapons

San Francisco – The University of California police will supplement and increase its inventory of military-grade weapons and equipment, including drones, bullets and thousands of pepper ball rounds, as part of an annual request approved by the Regent Commission on Wednesday.

The Trump administration’s handling of protests and campus security is under scrutiny, with five campuses – UCLA, Irving, Santa Barbara, San Diego and San Francisco – asking for more weapons, while campuses in Berkeley, Davis, Merced, Riverside, Riverside and Santa Cruz are not seeking new purchases.

The biggest requirement comes from the University of California, San Diego, which requires 5,000 new 5.56mm caliber rifle bullets to replace the rifles used in training. At UC Irvine, police requested 1,500 pepper balls of projectiles. Compared to other campuses, UCLA has a significant list of weapons (39,500 rifle ammunition and ammunition) that have made relatively few requests, including four new pepper ball launchers and 100 sponge foam bombs.

State law requires California law enforcement agencies to report annual reports on the acquisition and use of weapons qualifying as military equipment. The definition includes ammunition, explosives, and remote acoustic equipment that is regularly used by U.S. law enforcement agencies and is not unique to the military. Some of the equipment under the definition (such as drones) are not traditional weapons, but are used for patrols and special events.

UC spokesman Stett Holbrook in a statement. “The required projects are crucial to maintain operational readiness, support ongoing training programs and, above all, ensure public safety.”

A report from the office of UC Chairman James B. Milliken issued an approved board on Wednesday, adding that the tools “is not inseparable, but should be used with caution to protect the lives of UC community members/visitors and UC officials, while bringing the incident to the incident with minimal force.”

“The UC campus is not using or planning to carry out cargo of remaining military equipment from the U.S. Department of Defense Enforcement Support Office,” the report said.

Under state law, police departments must also disclose the use of military-grade weapons last year. The report said in 2024 that weapons were mainly used during training and new orders would help supplement the supplies used in these exercises.

UCLA has dozens of non-training exceptions:

• On June 10, 2024, the police “deployed 240 pepper ball projectiles in an incident involving radical populations.” It added that none of the rounds “targeted individuals, nor were there reports that those rounds directly affected anyone.” A sponge foam round was also launched. Police are responding to pro-Palestine camps and protests.
• Remote acoustic devices were used for crowd management 71 times. The report describes the device as “used to provide portable speakers for public address systems, horns or loudspeakers so that officials can communicate effectively with the crowds and provide emergency instructions to people on a large scale so that they can immediately take shelter or evacuate shelter.”
• A sponge foam circle was fired, “During the arrest, the suspect placed his hand near the police’s gun.”

The report also details the non-training uses of two other campuses: UC Davis deployed drones 11 times for “patrols and special events”, while UC Santa Cruz also used remote acoustic equipment for crowd management at least once.

California Parliament Act No. 481, which requests disclosure, was signed into law in 2021. However, public scrutiny of UC policing has continued to grow since 2024, when Pro-Palestinian protests grew across 10 university systems and officials clashed with protesters on several campuses.

UCLA police, LAPD and the California Highway Patrol have committed problems in internal and external reports, including a patrol compiled by the Congressional Board of Education for failing to coordinate and respond quickly to violent attacks on UCLA camps on April 30 and May 1, 2024. The agencies also face criticism and lawsuits from loved ones protesters.

Since then, UCLA has created a new top campus security post office, installed new police leadership, and made changes to protest rules, including zero tolerance camps.

Chelsea Shover, an associate professor at the UCLA, spoke during public comments at the Regents meeting, encouraging the Regent to refuse to buy.

“What I worry about is that it will be used with students and teachers,” Shover, who works in a school of medicine and public health, said. “As the UCLA campus protests showed last year, I don’t have confidence in military-grade equipment to make campus safer.”

Shover said President Trump recently raised a request to limit UCLA protests and freedom of speech in exchange for freezing federal research funding – “This has had a worrying and terrifying impact on rights protected by the First Amendment.”

Graeme Blair, a political science professor at UCLA, who was a member of the 2024 camp and other pro-Palestinian protests, said he believed Wednesday’s speech “covered the June 10, 2024 force, causing force and hurting students and staff” and that the campus protest ended in the arrest.

Blair said the projectiles burned by the police ended up “hitting students and teachers, causing them to get hurt and burning their eyes.” Police reported using only one round of foam. Blair said he witnessed multiple rounds.

“The fact that UCPD failed to describe these hazards questioned whether they could be trusted with more ammunition and deployment,” he said. “There are fewer ammunitions such as sponge bullets, rubber bullets and pepper balls, and there is no place on university campuses, let alone deploying with students, and teachers exercise their right to express themselves freely.”