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Berkeley council narrows proposed changes to pepper-spray reporting after hours of public comment
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Summary
After lengthy public testimony and amendments, the council voted to rescind a 1997 pepper-spray memo and require reporting on the city's Transparency Hub and the annual military equipment report, with a referral to the city manager to amend the controlled-equipment ordinance and work with vendors to ensure narratives, first-aid data and opt-in notifications can be published.
The Berkeley City Council voted to rescind the 1997 paper-based pepper-spray reporting requirement and to move reporting to the city's Transparency Hub and to the annual military equipment report, while also referring a request to the city manager to amend the Controlled Equipment Ordinance and to work with software vendors to make narrative descriptions, first-aid administration and opt-in notifications available on the hub where feasible.
The resolution prompted extensive public comment. The Peace and Justice Commission and the Police Accountability Board urged the council to retain narrative reporting and other details. "The narrative is the most important part of the use report, and its submission is what causes commissioners and community members the most concern," George Littman of the Peace and Justice Commission said during public comment.
Several community members warned that narrowing or eliminating narrative reporting would reduce oversight. "This resolution is being put forward in the guise of streamlining, but what it's really about is the normalization of pepper spraying," a public commenter said. Others urged retaining officer-level information; some asked the council to ban pepper spray entirely.
Councilmembers and staff negotiated textual changes on the floor to preserve the substance of narrative reporting while directing staff to explore technical options on the Transparency Hub. The mayor's supplemental added a deadline (14 days) for public upload to the hub where practical and explicitly asked the city manager to prepare an amendment to the Controlled Equipment Ordinance so pepper spray would appear in that annual report. The mayor's motion also directed staff to work with the vendor to determine whether recording of first aid administered and automated opt-in notifications for oversight bodies were feasible.
Police staff said the Transparency Hub already automates many data flows from dispatch and use-of-force reporting, but that adding new fields (for example a first-aid checkbox) may require vendor changes or manual data entry. The chief said the department would work with the vendor and could include pepper spray reporting in the next military-equipment report if feasible.
Councilmembers emphasized several guardrails: keep narrative context accessible to oversight bodies, avoid creating gaps between old and new reporting, and return with ordinance amendments as needed. After amendments and a roll-call vote, the motion passed with the council directing staff to return with the ordinance changes and with technical analysis of hub capabilities.
