Stockton Unified board approves police equipment report and funding request for rifle upgrades, 6-1

The Stockton Unified School District Board of Trustees voted 6-1 to accept the district police department'9s 2024 annual military-equipment use report and to allow the department to pursue upgrades to its patrol rifles and related supplies.

Chief Meyer Franco presented the report and said the items falling under the AB 481 definition are the department'9s emergency mobile communications vehicle and the patrol rifles officers carry. "This last year, we had 0 uses and 0 complaints regarding that," he told the board, clarifying that a reportable "use" in the document means the actual discharge of a weapon; pointing a rifle is tracked separately in use-of-force reviews.

Franco said the emergency communications vehicle functions as an incident command post and can serve as an additional dispatch center during major incidents. He said the vehicle was not deployed this year at community events because its generator was inoperable and that the department records such community deployments as a "use" when they occur.

Trustees pressed the department on when patrol rifles would be used and on storage and maintenance. "Who would you consider the threat? Would it be the student or who?" asked a trustee during questioning; Franco replied the decision is threat-driven and that rifles are limited to situations involving a weapon and are deployed by multiple officers under incident-command protocols. Sergeant Curtis Jew explained mechanical limits and maintenance needs for older rifles, saying parts and springs degrade with time and use.

Franco told the board the department seeks to replace older patrol rifles and add accessories such as red-dot sights to improve accuracy, and to purchase ammunition used in training. He said those purchases would come from the police department'9s general budget, noting prior federal relief (ESSER) had freed up funds in recent years.

During discussion trustees asked whether any of the rifles were federal surplus; Franco said all were purchased from dealers and had not been acquired from military surplus programs.

On a roll-call vote approving the item, six trustees voted yes and Clerk Donald Denayer voted no. The board'9s action authorizes the department to proceed with the procurement process and to return with any budget details required for approval.

What happens next: District staff will return with the purchase particulars and any budget adjustments required to fund the rifle upgrades and ammunition purchases.