Omaha police recently agreed to stop carrying gloves that can deliver electric shocks to students in the halls of Nebraska’s largest public school district. The decision affecting most Omaha middle and high schools came after the first revealed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)’s plan to give officers the “Gloves” – or “generated low output voltage emitters”. The devices have also been used in recent years by some jails.
The superintendent of Omaha public schools, Matthew Ray, on 18 August requested that police working in the schools, known as school resource officers, stop using the gloves. Omaha police agreed two days later. However, the suburban Bellevue police department that patrols two Omaha schools and the large Bellevue district said its officers will continue carrying the gloves.
Three other large school districts in the metro area that have Omaha school resource officers assigned to their buildings have not taken action to stop police from using the devices. The AP left messages seeking comment from the Millard, Elkhorn and Westside districts that are also patrolled by Omaha officers. Bellevue schools spokesperson Amanda Oliver said the district has a great relationship with Bellevue police and doesn’t see a need to alter anything.
And so for us right now, no changes are being made,” Oliver said. Ray said in a school board meeting on 17 August and in a letter to the public schools community that he’d only learned about the gloves the previous week. But local television station KETV found emails from 2023, when Omaha police notified the districts that the department planned to equip officers with the gloves, and an official with the Omaha district said they were already familiar with them because Bellevue police had them at two Omaha schools.
Students in all the Omaha area districts have gone back to class over the past two weeks. Before halting the use of the gloves, the Omaha police department held a news conference in which an officer demonstrated how they can help an officer quickly get control of someone who is refusing commands. Omaha police used the gloves twice during the 2025-26 school year.
And Bellevue police have also used them twice in previous years. At the school board meeting, about 30 people spoke out against police using the gloves. Residents and board members alike said they were appalled at the practice.
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