California colleges reveal their military weapons stockade after CalMatters investigation

For many public colleges and universities in California, keeping their campuses safe includes owning military-grade weaponry — AR-15s, stun grenades designed to cause temporary blindness and sonic weapons that resonate so loudly they are known in the armed forces as the voice of God.

According to state law, campus police can only own military equipment if the college believes there is no other way to uphold civilian safety.

That law, which passed in 2021, also requires police to make all their equipment dealings exceedingly clear to the public. However, not every college follows every part of the law, according to an investigation by CalMatters into all 148 public campuses in the California Community Colleges, University of California, and California State University systems.

Each campus’s state or district governing board — which gives permission for police to procure such items — has to annually re-approve a use policy, a chronicle of when the equipment has been used and an inventory. Once the report is approved and published online, campus police have 30 days to hold a conveniently located and “well-publicized” forum for the public to learn about and give feedback on the equipment, according to state law.

CalMatters attempted to compile the 2025 annual reports and use policies from every public higher education police department in the state that owns military equipment. Here is what we found.

Questions prompt campuses to act

Several campus police departments created reports after CalMatters’ inquiries, though the law requires the documents to be posted online as long as the equipment is usable. Not all reports or policies contained the details mandated by the 2021 law; in many cases campuses left out information, including manufacturers’ product descriptions, up-to-date inventories and equipment quantities. The University of California Board of Regents approved UC Berkeley’s annual report last September, but university police only published their equipment list on April 7, after four CalMatters inquiries.

According to their own reports, San Jose State University and San Francisco State University own AR-15s even though Cal State’s policy does not authorize it. Cal State spokesperson Amy Bentley-Smith said these AR-15s are standard issue, which would exempt them from the reporting requirement, even though San Jose’s report classifies them as specializedfirearms and university police departments determine what equipment is standard issue. San Francisco’s semi automatic rifles are standard issue and won’t be listed in the annual report going forward, university spokesperson Robert King said.

Campus police also must submit their yearly report to their district or state governing boards. Chico State and Cal State Northridge police said their reports are sent to the Cal State chancellor’s office, which the systemwide policy requires. But Klarissa Garcia, executive assistant to the chief of police at Cal State Dominguez Hills, said her department does not submit its report to any governing body.

Multiple police departments said they did not hold a campus forum in 2025, including Cal Poly Humboldt and Cal State Sonoma, nor did they respond to inquiries about when the required public meeting was held. Many departments said they held meetings, but did not answer questions about how they publicized them, or said they posted announcements on social media without any record of it on their accounts.

The Cal State Board of Trustees has not reviewed the systemwide equipment policy at a public meeting since 2022, though the policy is supposed to be renewed at least annually. Under the policy the board adopted, the trustees only need to check the policy again if the university system wants to authorize new types of equipment, Bentley-Smith told CalMatters. She added that Cal State will re-examine the policy to ensure it follows the law.

Several community colleges were missing military equipment policies and reports when questioned by CalMatters. The college system’s chancellor’s office does not track whether colleges follow the transparency law, according to its communications specialist Melissa Villarin.

CalMatters used annual reports to create a mass inventory of the equipment found at California higher education institutions, which includes hundreds of semi-automatic rifles, thousands of munitions containing the same chemical as chili peppers, and hundreds of thousands of rifle munitions. Some reports did not list quantities despite the legal requirement, so CalMatters sourced other documents posted to campus websites or directly asked for those figures.

The military equipment law, written by former Democratic Assemblymember David Chiu, now the city attorney of San Francisco, only applies to campus police departments with sworn police officers. Campus safety or security departments with unsworn personnel do not have to report their equipment. Over 40 community colleges told CalMatters they did not file a report.

It’s not just police using military-grade tools. The Cal State Monterey Bay 2025 report states its Emergency Management team owns three camera drones, which, being remotely piloted aircrafts, are classified as military equipment under state law. The Emergency Management team reports to the campus chief of police but is not itself made up of sworn officers, according to interim police chief Yvonne Gordon.

Following CalMatters’ inquiries, several campuses — as well as the Cal State system — said they are hereafter committed to following the military equipment transparency law in its entirety. In addition, some are downsizing their inventory.

Defense-style weaponry in schools

Military equipment forums held at universities are often sparsely attended, according to several police departments. But some students are impassioned about the issue. At a rally outside a UC Board of Regents meeting in January, UCLA’s chapter of the UC Divest Coalition, an anti-imperialism and anti-militarism student group, criticized the regents for spending tuition money on military equipment while the board convened yards away in a school ballroom.

UCLA police use long-range acoustic devices — which emit focused beams of high-volume sound — as giant loudspeakers to broadcast announcements to large crowds. In the 2024-25 school year, the department deployed these “voice of God” tools 71 times, all during crowd management situations, defined by the university as assemblies, protests and demonstrations. Police at UC Santa Cruz used a similar acoustic device to give dispersal orders during the 2024 pro-Palestine student encampments.

UCLA does not use the acoustic devices to produce high-pitched tones, which they are also capable of emitting, said Richard Mejia, the director of emergency communications and information for the university’s campus safety office. But pitch differs from loudness, which is measured in decibels: a long-range acoustic device can produce 160 decibels, and sounds over 120 can cause permanent hearing damage even during a short exposure. The university said it doesn’t prescribe a fixed decibel output, adding that it follows federal and scientific exposure regulations, including those from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which permits sudden noises up to 140 decibels. For reference, a bulldozer emits about 95.

Not all inventoried equipment is approved for use by district or state governing boards. An October 2025 memo from San Jose State University states its police department owns 33 tear gas grenades, which burst into clouds of choking chemicals when released and, for some brands, cause “psychological and physiological effects.” The Cal State military equipment policy does not authorize using grenades to deploy tear gas or oleoresin capsicum, the chili pepper irritant.

These grenades have “always been in our armory,” Captain Jermaine Thomas said. “We will never use them.” He added that the department plans to destroy them, along with the university’s submachine gun, which is also not authorized under Cal State policy.

Bentley-Smith told CalMatters that the submachine gun was never added to the systemwide policy manual because the university never used or requested permission to use it.

Campus forums vary in scope

A promotional website for San Jose State’s 2025 community forum says the event covers current police initiatives without specifically mentioning military equipment, but Thomas said that subject was indeed discussed.

About 21,500 students attend El Camino College in Los Angeles County, which announced its 2025 meeting, held in a gymnasium, during four other meetings held on campus: the College Public Safety and Security Committee, the Academic Senate, the College Council and the President’s Meeting. Police Chief Matthew Vander Horck said about 30 people attended. Meanwhile, Captain Jeffrey Chobanian of the UCLA Police Department, which serves about 49,000 students, said the department used social media to promote its 2025 forum, held on Zoom, but nobody attended.

Some of the forums become question and answer sessions, like the ones held by San Bernardino Community College District police, according to their chief Blake Bonnet. Students and faculty come prepared, read the policy — which includes when and where the equipment can be used — to the officers and press them directly on how it will be enforced, Bonnet said.

Bonnet said he publicizes the annual meeting through the police department’s online newsletter, Just the Facts, which contains crime logs and topical safety tips and is sent to students and staff every month.

“People ask questions and seek clarification,” Bonnet said. “If you don’t understand the police world — which some people do, some people don’t — if you have a question, I would rather you ask so that we can understand your concern.”

At UC Davis’ annual forum, meeting participants have asked about when and why officers can deploy weapons, which necessitates at least annual trainings, and how the equipment is shared with others — since the school has lent drones to other UC campuses for use in crowd control and can borrow equipment from other campuses in preparation for “major” protests and demonstrations. Last year, an attendee asked if other police forces can bring unauthorized military equipment to campus, according to meeting minutes. Captain Mark Brunet responded that they can.

Rage against assault rifles

In February 2025, a Mt. San Antonio College police advisory committee composed of college and police personnel and two students met to discuss adding AR-15s to the department’s arsenal. Before long, other students caught wind of the plans. Student César Tlatoāni Alvarado said fellow students, especially veterans and students of color, were not comfortable with their campus becoming militarized.

“The entire campus was talking about it,” said Tlatoāni Alvarado, who studies political science and world languages and global studies. They also served as the campus’s student trustee for two terms, from 2023 to 2025.

By CalMatters’ count, over 25 public colleges own semi-automatic rifles, which shoot with more precision, accuracy and distance than handguns, according to several school policies.

Tlatoāni Alvarado said they were fearful of the impact of a militarized police force on the campus protesting scene, which they said is active but peaceful.

“I knew for a fact that this was being done to silence dissent on our campus,” Tlatoāni Alvarado said.

The student led a coalition of campus clubs to demonstrate against the proposed purchases and vehemently protest at multiple police town halls. That April, nearly 20 students, faculty and alumni condemned the plan to buy AR-15s at the college district’s board of trustees’ monthly meeting. The protestors included the student trustee, who said several hundred students were involved in the overall effort.

“There were so many students that were yelling,” Tlatoāni Alvarado said. “They were screaming at the administration. They were upset, they were frustrated. They felt betrayed.”

As of June 2026, the college does not own semi-automatic rifles. “The discussion is still ongoing” on whether the college will seek them in the future, according to campus police chief Kelli Florman.

Still, Tlatoāni Alvarado considers the students’ work a success.

“It was a lot of work,” they said. “I was one of the students that had led the way in that campaign. But I couldn’t have done it alone. There were so many of us.”

Fast track to compliance

Compton College President Keith Curry said a February inquiry from CalMatters put the military equipment law on his radar for the first time. Campus police had issued semi-automatic rifles to patrol officers for over seven years, arguing that standard-issue pistols did not effectively protect civilians and officers during the 1997 North Hollywood bank robbery and shootout. The campus police department also owns incapacitating tasers and a submachine gun, the latter of which the college reports is for potentially lethal situations and to shoot through barriers. However, after some research, Curry realized his college never adopted an equipment use policy.

“Once I understood that it was not implemented correctly, I went into action mode,” Curry said. “I was calling around, I was calling a police chief that I know, I looked on different websites. I had to dissect the bill to understand it, myself, about what’s going on.”

Ultimately, Curry and Compton’s attorney wrote up a Corrective Action Plan that his district’s board of trustees unanimously approved on March 16. In accordance with the plan, the college approved an official policy in April, held a community engagement meeting in May, reviewed an annual use report in June and will update the police policy manual by September.

The compliance review served as a general reminder to build transparency between campus police and their constituents, Curry said. In April, he announced the establishment of three new forms of oversight for campus police: a student committee, a community advisory committee, and a task force reviewing police procedures and policies.

“As a leader, you have to understand what mistakes are made. You have to fix the mistakes,” Curry said.

After a CalMatters inquiry, Chaffey College officials also discovered they had no policy, which Chief Steven Griffin amended by writing a policy that his college board then passed in April. Cal State Monterey Bay updated its website with an equipment policy. Southwestern College modified its annual report with munition quantities. And San Joaquin Delta College, Cuesta College, and the Riverside Community College District all said they are unsure whether their past documentation follows the law, but are working to ensure future compliance.

Other college officials said adjusting their documentation to conform to state law made them reconsider the tools they have. After taking “immediate steps” to update MiraCosta College’s report, public and governmental relations director Kristen Gonzales said the campus police chief plans to “responsibly reduce (munition) inventory to a level that aligns with our actual operational needs and best practices.”

Tlatoāni Alvarado said that while campus militarization is deeply concerning, he’s witnessing a growing trend of students resisting it.

“College campuses are a focal point for where our activism can translate into real-world change,” they said. “Colleges are trying to quash that dissent. But what they need to know, and they need to be made aware of, is that there’s many more of us than there are of them.”

---

Phoebe Huss is a contributor with the College Journalism Network, a collaboration between CalMatters and student journalists from across California. CalMatters higher education coverage is supported by a grant from the College Futures Foundation.

---

This story was originally published by CalMatters and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.