San Francisco – The University of the University of California will replace and increase its arsenal of weapons and equipment, including drones, bullets and thousands of pepper ball rounds, as part of an annual application approved on Wednesday by the Government Regent Board.
As the management of the protests and the security of the UC campus is seen under the scrutiny of the Trump administration, five campus: UCLA, Irvine, Santa Barbara, San Diego and San Francisco, asked for more weapons, while those of Berkeley, Davis, Merced, Riverside and Santa Cruz did not seek to make new purchases.
The largest application came from UC San Diego, who said he needed 5,000 new rounds of 5.56 millimeters caliber to replace those used in training. In UC Irvine, the police requested 1,500 pepper ball projectiles. UCLA, which has a significant weapons inventory compared to other campuses, between 39,500 rifle and ammunition rounds, made relatively few requests, including four new pepper ball launches and 100 rounds of sponge foam.
The state law requires the agencies for the application of the California Law to make annual reports on the acquisition and use of weapons that qualify as a military team. The definition includes amounts, explosives and long -range acoustic devices, which are used regularly by the United States police and are not exclusive to the military. Some equipment under the definition, such as drones, are not traditional weapons, but are used for patrol and special events.
“With the exceptions of UC San Diego, all campus requests are for non -lethal alternatives to standard firearms, allowing officers to unwishly situations and respond without the use of mortal force,” said UC Stett Holbrook spokesman in a statement. “The requested articles are essential to maintain operational preparation, support continuous training programs and, above all, guarantee public safety.”
A report by the Office of the President of the UC, James B. Milliken, was presented on Wednesday to the Board of Regents, which approved the applications, added that the tools “are not used indiscriminately but with caution to protect the lives of the members of the members of the community of the ICI and the Cu officials when taking an incident to a conclusion with the least amount of strength.”
The report says that “not UC Campus USA or receives assets from the support office of the Department of Defense and Application of the US Law. For surplus military teams.”
According to state law, police departments also have to reveal the use of qualified weapons in the last year. In 2024, the report says that weapons were mainly used during training and that new orders would help replace the supplies used in those exercises.
There were dozens of exceptions without training in UCLA:
- On June 10, 2024, the Police deployed 240 pepper ball projectiles “during an incident that involved an aggressive crowd.” He added that none of the rounds was “aimed at individuals and there were no reports of these rounds that directly affect any person.” A single round of sponge foam was also shot. Police responded to a pro-palestine camp and protest.
- A long -range acoustic device for multitude management 71 times was used. The report described the device as “a portable speaker used to provide greater sound and clarity on public addresses, oxen or megaphones so that officers can effectively communicate with crowds and provide emergency instructions to people in large areas so that they can take immediate measures such as protecting in their place or evacuating.”
- A sponge foam round was fired “during an arrest when a suspect put his hand near the firearm of a police officer.”
The report also detailed the useless uses on two additional campuses: UC Davis deployed drones 11 times for “patrol and special events”, and UC Santa Cruz also used a long -range acoustic device for the management of crowds at least once.
The bill 481 of the California Assembly, which requires the revelations, was signed in 2021. But the public scrutiny of the surveillance of the UC has grown since 2024, when the pro-palestinian protests grew in the system of 10 universities and the officers collided with protesters in several campuses.
The UCLA Police, the LAPD and California road patrol had faults in internal and external reports, including one compiled by an education committee of the Congress, for not coordinating and responding quickly to a violent attack against a UCLA camp on April 30 and May 1, 2024. Agencies have also faced criticisms and demands by pro-pourers after the official multiple manifestations that year.
Since then, UCLA has created a new security post on the campus, installed a new police leadership and instituted changes in the protest rules, including zero tolerance of the camps.
Speaking on Wednesday during a period of public comments at the Regents meeting, the associate professor of UCLA Chelsea Shover encouraged the regents to reject purchases.
“My concern is that it will be used against students and teachers,” said Shover, who works in medical and public health schools. In an interview, he added: “I have no confidence, the military grade team will leave the campus safer, since the protests of the UCLA campus last year made clear.”
Together with the demands, President Trump has recently made to restrict the protests and liberties of speech in the UCLA, in exchange for the release of federal federal research funds, “this establishes a worrying and chilling effect on the rights protected by the first amendment,” said Shover.
Graeme Blair, Professor of Political Science at the UCLA who was part of the 2024 camp and additional pro-palestinian protests, said he believed that Wednesday's presentation “darkens an extraordinary use of the force that injured students and the faculty” during the protest of the campus of June 10, 2024 that ended in arrests.
Blair said that the projectiles to the police ended up “hitting the students and the faculty, leaving them bruised and with burning eyes.” Police informed that he only used a foam round. Blair said he witnessed multiple rounds.
“The fact that UCPD does not describe these damages puts in doubt if you can trust that more ammunition and deployment can be trusted,” he said. “The less lethal ammunition such as sponge rounds, rubber bullets and pepper balls do not take place in a university campus, much less than deployed against students and teachers who exercise their right to free expression.”
