UTS markets its PepperBall projectiles and launchers primarily to law enforcement, military, prison, and private security agencies. Contracts with the DOD show that the company has supplied both the Army and Navy with projectiles, launchers, security equipment, training rounds, and related accessories for use as a "non-lethal" alternative for controlling crowds, protests, and civil disobedience; denying area access; warding off armed attackers and standoffs; and conducting checkpoints.

UTS has also supplied U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with $7.4 million worth of PepperBall projectiles, launchers, riot control equipment, training devices, and related accessories, accounting for approximately 70% of the company's overall federal contracts. In contributing to the militarization of border policing, UTS frames migrants as dangerous individuals from which officers "are expected to protect the border safely against." According to the company, CBP agents can use PepperBalls to "protect everyone safely" against "illegal aliens, rock throwers, rioters, and more."

UTS also contracts with federal prison and police agencies. Between 2008 and 2022, the company provided just over $1.4 million worth of projectiles, launchers, holsters, security equipment, loaders, and related accessories to the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) for a wide range of uses, including cell extraction, "inmate control," building security, "high risk transports," suspect apprehension, crowd control, and vehicle interdiction.

Agencies in at least 20 states, including Alaska, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia, have purchased PepperBall projectiles, launchers, and related accessories.

In California, at least 24 law enforcement agencies that responded to our records requests have purchased PepperBall live round projectiles, FTC launchers, tactical accessories, riot control vests, and other equipment, either directly from UTS or from law enforcement equipment distributors such as Adamson Police Products and LC Action Police Supply.

UTS markets its PepperBall products to police as safe, "non-lethal" alternatives to firearms. However, police have routinely, and sometimes fatally, deployed PepperBalls against crowds, protestors, and bystanders. In 2004, for example, a college student in Boston died after police struck her in the eye with a pepper-pellet projectile during a World Series celebration. Since then, police have improperly fired PepperBalls at Occupy protestors at the University of California-Davis and in Denver, Colo. in 2011 and 2012, respectively; at anti-Trump protestors in Phoenix, Ariz. in 2017; and at protestors, legal observers, and journalists during Black Lives Matter protests in Dallas, Texas, Denver, Colo., Omaha, Neb., and other cities across the U.S. in 2020.

Numerous cities have faced lawsuits stemming from injuries caused by police officers' use of PepperBalls. In 2021, for example, a federal lawsuit was filed in the case of Shaiitarrio Brown and Brittany King, a couple targeted with PepperBalls during a 2020 George Floyd protest in Denver, Colo. The lawsuit alleges that King, who was pregnant at the time she was shot with PepperBall projectiles, suffered a broken hand, chemical burns, bruises, and pregnancy complications. Similar lawsuits alleging impr