Omaha schools ban shock gloves after outcry; neighboring districts resist

Omaha's school district made a sudden reversal in mid-August, ordering police to stop carrying electric shock gloves in school hallways. The decision came swiftly—superintendent Matthew Ray requested the ban on August 18th, and Omaha police agreed two days later. But the story behind that agreement reveals something more complicated: the devices had been in use for years, deployed at least twice during the previous school year, and their presence had apparently gone largely unnoticed until a national news organization exposed the practice.

The gloves themselves are small but potent. Manufactured by Compliant Technologies LLC, they deliver an electric shock when an officer presses a button and makes direct contact with skin. Unlike stun guns, they leave no visible marks—no burns, no contact wounds. Omaha police had purchased 40 of them in 2025 for about $66,000. The department trained most of its 34 school resource officers to use them, with the understanding that officers would warn before deploying the device and maintain contact for up to 15 seconds while delivering the shock.

When Ray announced the ban at a school board meeting on August 17th, about 30 people showed up to speak. Not a single person defended the gloves. A senior at Omaha Central High School named Nora Wessel described the visceral fear the devices inspired: the thought of watching a peer "being electrocuted" in a place meant to be safe, and how the weapons created distance between students and the officers they were supposed to trust. Board members and residents alike said they were appalled. Yet Ray's own statement suggested he had only recently learned about the gloves—a claim that unraveled quickly. Local television found emails from 2023 in which Omaha police had notified the district of their plan to equip officers with the devices. An official acknowledged the district was already familiar with them because Bellevue police had been carrying them at two Omaha schools for more than three years.

The two documented uses in Omaha schools during 2025-26 illustrated the kinds of situations that prompted deployment. In one case, an officer used the glove on a high school student who was trying to escape after fighting with a security guard. In the second case, the device was used on a student at the district's integrated learning center—a school for special education students. That student had made verbal threats, thrown a chair at a security guard, and punched the guard in the head. The fact that the glove was used on a vulnerable student raised immediate questions about protocols and safeguards.

Ken Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services consulting firm, articulated the core concern: before schools allow police to bring in any new technology, there should be careful discussion about how officers will respond to students with disabilities or special medical needs, how parents will be informed, and under what circumstances the devices can be used. "Less than lethal doesn't mean low risk," Trump said. The Omaha police department countered that the gloves represented the safest use-of-force option available in rare situations, and that officers were trained to give warning before using them.

But the ban in Omaha's largest school district did not ripple outward as one might expect. Bellevue police, which patrols two Omaha schools and the large Bellevue district, announced they would continue carrying the gloves. Bellevue police chief Ken Clary said he was not comfortable having his officers give up a tool that had "repeatedly proven to be safe, effective and less harmful than the alternatives." Three other large metro-area districts—Millard, Elkhorn, and Westside—all patrolled by Omaha officers, had not taken action to stop police from using the devices. Bellevue schools spokesperson Amanda Oliver said the district had a great relationship with Bellevue police and saw no need to change anything.

Omaha's mayor, John Ewing Jr., who had helped create the school resource officer program when he worked for the police force, said the department had honored the school district's decision to "opt out." The police would continue to carry stun guns, batons, pepper spray, and firearms. The question now is whether the neighboring districts will face similar pressure, or whether the shock gloves will remain a tool available to officers in schools across the metro area—even as the largest district in the state has decided they have no place in its hallways.