The Cal Poly Police Department will be reducing its stock of ‘regulated equipment,’ according to Police Chief George Hughes.
The change was announced during a seminar held Friday, Jan. 20 regarding the department’s stock of regulated equipment, also referred to as military equipment.
The department will be getting rid of its only pepper ball gun and its pepper ball ammunition.
“We would only use these [pepper balls] in a riotous situation,” Hughes said. “To tell you the truth, we’ve never had to use them.”
The gun, which is a paintball gun that is outfitted to fire pepper balls, will either be destroyed or sold to permissible owners.
The department also maintains one bean bag shotgun and a command and control vehicle. According to Hughes, the beanbag shotgun has not been deployed by the department. He intends to replace the beanbag shotgun with a shotgun capable of shooting a 40mm rubber bullet.
However, plans for the hypothetical replacement have not been outlined.
The command and control vehicle is a trailer intended to be the base of operations for large scale events, such as a large sporting event. It was deployed a single time in 2022 for a training exercise.
The seminar was put on as a part of California Assembly Bill 481, which mandates that law enforcement agencies seek approval from a governing body — in this case, the Cal Poly Board of Trustees — to maintain a stock of military equipment. The bill also outlines that law enforcement agencies present an annual report to the general public on what is in their stock of regulated equipment.
A full list of the department’s regulated equipment is available online.
