Vanguard Sacramento Bureau Chief
SACRAMENTO, CA – An updated military equipment policy —that allow the purchase of more military equipment from drones and armored vehicles to pepper balls, less lethal shotguns and 40mm launchers—was approved by the Sacramento City Council last week, although with caveats.
The council okayed the department’s request to purchase $95,000 of new equipment, including drones, grenades and shotgun ammunition—about a quarter of the $360,000 request the department presented last year, according to a CapRadio story.
The chair of the Sacramento Community Police Review Commission, Keyan Bliss, strongly suggested police “should add language to the policy describing situations when each type of equipment can and can’t be used,” CapRadio reported.
The commission also recommended the police department add back a section it deleted from the previous version explaining how the police will consider the public’s safety and civil rights.
“Beyond just the improvements that it made in using more plain speak and less legal jargon, the department may have overcorrected in simplifying the general orders’ language,” Bliss said, according to CapRadio.
It was the first time in three years the military equipment policy—Sacramento already has nearly $3 million in such equipment—passed unanimously by the council.
The council advised the police to work with a commission to “answer questions such as what consequences officers could face for violating the policy and why proposed purchases are necessary,” said CapRadio.
Assembly Bill 481 —passed in 2021—requires police to get annual council approval to fund, acquire and use items classified as military equipment, and should be based on public input.
Councilmembers Caity Maple, Katie Valenzuela and Mai Vang, who opposed previous policies, said new data on race and age in the annual report allows the city to try to correct trends of officers disproportionately using equipment on certain groups.
The report noted, “Police used military equipment against Black people for 53 percent of the 210 incidents in which the department provided demographic data between May 2023 and April 2024, even though Black people make up just 13 percent of the city’s population.”
“Reports like this are supposed to be an opportunity for us to step back and have those conversations,” Valenzuela said. “You know, why is that happening, what decisions are being made?”
