University of California police will be replenishing and increasing their stockpile of military-grade weapons and equipment – including drones, bullets and thousands of pepper-ball rounds – as part of an annual request approved Wednesday 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.
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. Although it has a significant weapons inventory compared to other campuses – among it 39,500 rifle rounds and ammo – UCLA’s police made relatively few requests, including four new pepper-ball launchers and 100 sponge foam rounds…