Special

September 29, 2026 · 5:00 PM

Berkeley City Council’s special meeting is focused on whether to change police crowd-control and tactical weapon policies adopted in 2020. Council is set to debate a proposal to let Berkeley police use tear gas again only in narrowly defined life-threatening emergencies, while keeping the ban on tear gas for crowd control and ending the pandemic-era moratorium on smoke and pepper spray. Council will also consider a competing recommendation from the Peace and Justice Commission to keep Berkeley’s existing bans on tear gas and pepper spray, as well as older bans on police dogs and helicopters, and to pursue an independent academic study of the health and social justice impacts of these policing tools.