UC police get approval for more weapons, equipment

The departments at campuses including UCLA asked for more inventory. Rifle rounds, drones and pepper balls will be purchased.

- BY JAWEED KALEEM

IN May 2024, law enforcement descends on UC Irvine as demonstrators protest Palestinians' treatment.

University of California police will be replenishing and increasing their stockpile of weapons and equipment — including drones, bullets and thousands of pepper ball rounds — as part of an annual request approved this week by the governing board of regents.

As UC's handling of protests and campus security comes under scrutiny from the Trump administration, five campuses UCLA, Irvine, Santa Barbara, San Diego and San Francisco asked for more weapons, while those in Berkeley, Davis, Merced, Riverside and Santa Cruz did not seek to make new purchases.

LAPD officers keep watch after clearing an encampment of pro-Palestinian protesters at UCLA in May 2024.

The biggest request came from UC San Diego, which said it needed 5,000 new 5.56-millimeter caliber rifle rounds to replace ones used in trainings. At UC Irvine, police asked for 1,500 pepper-ball projectiles.

UCLA, which has a significant weapons inventory compared with other campuses among it 39,500 rifle rounds and ammo made relatively few requests, including four new pepper-ball launchers and 100 sponge-foam rounds.

California law enforcement agencies are required by state law to make annual reports on the acquisition and use of weapons that qualify as military equipment. The definition includes munitions, explosives and long-range acoustic devices, which are regularly used by U.S. law enforcement and are not exclusive to the military. Some equipment under the definition, such as drones, are not traditional weapons but used for patrol and special events.