Sheriff presents first annual military-equipment inventory; seeks two replacements and pledges oversight and complaint process

The Sheriff's Office presented its first annual military-equipment inventory and deployment report to the Government Audit & Oversight Committee on April 18, detailing equipment categories, 2023 uses and training, and two equipment purchases the office seeks approval to replace obsolete items.

Captain Alejandro Cabebe listed items covered by AB 481: small unmanned aircraft systems (drones), mobile command vehicles, rapid-response transport vehicles, breaching shotguns and breaching slugs, patrol rifles, sniper rifles, diversionary devices (flashbangs), less-lethal 40mm launchers, ARWEN 37mm launchers and unmanned ground robots. HHe reported deployments were generally limited and largely event-driven: the drone was used during the APEC summit and a suicide-threat incident, mobile command assets staged responders for APEC and the Feinstein memorial, and special-response teams were deployed as rapid-response elements in those events.

Training accounted for a substantial share of use: the department reported cross-agency UAS training hours, patrol-rifle and ARWEN qualification sessions, and a 384-hour training total for operators of the ARWEN system. Several equipment items (e.g., the MP5 submachine gun and a legacy ground scout robot) are currently not operational or are obsolete; the Sheriff's Office requested authority to purchase a modern tactical ground robot (for reconnaissance only) and a kinetic breaching tool already approved on SFPD's equipment list.

The office also described a complaint and oversight process: deployment complaints will be investigated by the Department of Police Accountability (DPA) per an agreement with the sheriff, and the Sheriff's Office said it will work with the DPA and the Office of the Inspector General on auditing and transparency.

Supervisors asked about training, the community outreach meeting that accompanied the posting, and the operational restrictions on equipment (for example, that replacement ground robots would be camera-only reconnaissance devices). The committee voted to forward the report to the full Board with a positive recommendation.