Santa Ana police have been violating state military equipment law for 2 years: ‘We messed up’

California law enforcement agencies are required to track and publicly document how they use military equipment, including less-lethal bean bag shotgun rounds, drones and armored vehicles, under a state law passed in 2022.

But Santa Ana’s Police Department has been out of compliance with this law for the past two years, Commander Mat Sorenson told a crowd of about 10 people at a community meeting Wednesday.

“We messed up,” Sorenson said. “ We dropped the ball, now we're trying to fix it.”

The law, Assembly Bill 481, requires law enforcement to make annual public reports describing how and why military equipment was deployed, including summaries of complaints, internal investigations and potential violations related to the equipment.

Police Chief Robert Rodriguez said the department prepared reports for the years of 2023 and 2024. But because of what Rodriguez called an “administrative oversight,” those reports were not shared publicly or presented to city leaders as required by the law to continue using the weapons.

The department retroactively produced the reports and discussed a report covering the past year at the sparsely attended community meeting Wednesday afternoon. LAist spoke with everyone who attended the meeting as a community member. Each one said they were disappointed by the hastily planned meeting and lack of detail in the reports.

David Pulido — who's on the police accountability committee at Community Service Organization Orange County, a group advocating for Chicano rights — told LAist after the meeting, “ I wasn't happy with the presentation. I felt it was kind of like running cover for the department. It was brief, not well publicized, poorly attended.”

What the reports say

According to a report covering May 2024 to April 2025 that was presented Wednesday, the Santa Ana Police Department has access to military equipment like armored vehicles, a “long range acoustic device” and one “tactical robot.” The report says the maintenance of the equipment cost the department around $30,000.

The report lacks summaries of why and how the equipment was deployed. It explains that Santa Ana police deployed military equipment in response to “field based incidents” 30 times — including four instances with the SWAT team — and to “community events” 11 times. Police detained 21 suspects while using military equipment, the report states.

No information was provided on whether the use of these weapons resulted in serious injuries. The report does say that no one was killed by Santa Ana police using military equipment during the review period.

According to the report, the police department did not receive community complaints and the use of these weapons were “deemed appropriate” per an internal review by police.

Problems with the law

The contents of military equipment reports vary by agency. If those in attendance Wednesday are disappointed with the thoroughness of Santa Ana’s reports, Sorenson said they could blame state lawmakers.

 ”The legislature's very good at telling us what we have to do, but not how to do it,” Sorenson told the audience.

He said he looked at other agencies' reports: some that were a few pages long, others that were 65 pages long, and picked a happy medium.

“I  don't know that anybody's gonna go through 65 pages of stuff,” Sorenson said.

Pulido, of the Community Service Organization Orange County, agreed that weaknesses in the report stem from weaknesses in the underlying law.

“ It's not enough to have a report,” he said, adding that a report can be “biased” as it is up to law enforcement agencies on how they want to frame it. The report provided by Santa Ana police was “very brief” and “lacking information,” Pulido said.

Assembly Bill 481 does not lay out any enforcement mechanisms, another weakness according to Pulido.

“If it has no enforcement mechanisms, it's not gonna get enforced,” he said.

Community weighs in

The presentation did not satisfy Bulmaro "Boomer" Vicente, a resident of Santa Ana and policy and political director at Chispa who was at Wednesday’s meeting.

“ I was concerned and disappointed in the report itself because there were some things that were missing, some costs that were missing as it related to transportation personnel costs, training and usage upgrade, things that should have been included,” Vicente said. “His response to not having a more detailed report is he doesn't think people will read them, which is very problematic.”

Vicente added that the report lacked information “ important for transparency, for accountability, and also to ensure that department is being fully compliant with state law.”

Vicente was also disappointed that the meeting appeared to be hastily put together for a time when few people could attend.

The meeting was announced on the police department’s social media accounts on July 10 and held at the department’s headquarters at 4 p.m. before the end of a typical work day. Vicente said that time and location was not accessible for all constituents in the city.

He said he wishes the meeting was held at a time where  working class families can attend and at a “more community central space where people who may not feel comfortable entering the police department can have the opportunity and feel comfortable in expressing their questions, their concerns, and their grievances.”

City leader weighs in

Councilmember Jessie Lopez was the only city leader present at Wednesday’s community meeting.

“ I appreciate them being honest,” she said. “Their acknowledgement that a mistake happened and this is why they haven't had community meetings and I think it's a good starting point.”

Lopez, like the community members, did not find the report adequate, calling it a “quick presentation.”

“ We're a city of over 300,000 residents, and so there wasn't even 20 people in that room. It was being hosted at 4 p.m. during a workday. There was no Zoom link available,” she said about the limited community engagement.

The new reports will come in front of the City Council Tuesday. Lopez said the meeting Wednesday will help her prepare for the council meeting.

“ It helps me draft and come up questions that I'll be asking from the dais,” she said.

How to watchdog your police department

One of the best things you can do to hold officials accountable is pay attention.

AB481 requires police departments, including those at transit agencies, school districts and university campuses, sheriff’s departments, district attorney’s offices and probation departments, to provide reports about the use of military equipment..

So how do you know if they're in compliance? It’s simple, search for the law enforcement agency name and AB 481 on any search engine and a public page should pop up.

You can learn more about the use of equipment at community meetings law enforcement agencies are required to hold to provide transparency and discuss the policies that affect your community.

You can also attend City Council meetings where this is discussed.

• Read tips on how to get involved.
• The next scheduled Santa Ana City Council meeting is Tuesday, Aug. 19. You can check out the Santa Ana City Council full calendar here and learn how to submit a public comment. 

If your law enforcement agency is not in compliance and you would like to share a tip, reach out to yfarzan@laist.com.