The city of Santa Ana “reaffirmed” the need to have military equipment used by their police department in a 4-3 vote that took place at the city council meeting on August 19.
This comes after LAist reporting revealed the Santa Ana Police Department (SAPD) was breaking state law for two years by failing to report their use of military equipment annually. At the meeting, Mayor Valerie Amezcua and Councilmembers Thai Viet Phan, Phil Bacerra and David Penaloza voted in favor of SAPD continuing to use military equipment and move towards a drone program.
According to SAPD’s military equipment use report and emails between Commander Mathew Sorenson and a drone vendor, the department has $250,000 budgeted for the drone program. On May 7, Sorenson wrote to Flock Safety’s regional account executive Larry Barsocchini, “My total budget for the project, including hardware, software and maintenance, is $250,000.00.”…