Nebraska’s largest public school district has asked police officers to stop carrying electric shock gloves inside its schools after learning the devices had already been used on two students.
Omaha Public Schools Superintendent Matthew Ray made the request this week following mounting criticism of the devices, formally known as Generated Low Output Voltage Emitters, or G.L.O.V.E.s. Omaha Police agreed to comply, meaning its school resource officers will no longer carry them on district property.
That does not mean the gloves are completely gone from Omaha Public Schools. Bellevue Police also provides school resource officers at two district schools, and that department rejected the district’s request to stop carrying them.
The disagreement leaves OPS in an unusual position. The district does not want the devices in its schools, Omaha Police has agreed to remove them, but officers from another department working inside the same school system will continue carrying them.
Two Students Were Shocked Last School Year
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The Associated Press reports that Omaha Police purchased 40 of the gloves for roughly $66,000 in 2025. Most of the department’s 34 school resource officers were trained to use them.
Unlike a Taser, the G.L.O.V.E. is worn on an officer’s hand and requires direct contact with a person’s skin. It can deliver an electrical shock for up to 15 seconds, according to AP.
Omaha Police used the devices on students twice during the 2025-26 school year.
One incident involved a high school student at Omaha South High School. The second involved a middle school student attending the district’s Integrated Learning Program.
According to police records obtained by 3 News Now, the latter incident occurred in May. Police said the student had threatened staff, thrown a chair that struck a security guard, and punched the guard before an officer used the glove.
The Integrated Learning Program serves students in special education, a detail that became a significant part of the public criticism surrounding the devices.
The District Asked For Them To Be Removed
The issue drew a large response at an Aug. 17 Omaha Public Schools Board of Education meeting.
About 30 parents, students, and community members spoke against the devices, according to Nebraska Public Media. AP reported that nobody spoke in favor of them.
Board member Gini Magnuson said the use of the devices had never come before the school board for a vote.
Ray said during the meeting that he had not previously told board members about the gloves because he himself did not know they were being used.
“The board did not know about this because I didn’t know,” Ray said, according to 3 News Now.
The following day, Ray sent requests to officials in Omaha and Bellevue asking that school resource officers no longer be authorized to carry the devices at OPS locations.
In a message published by the district, Ray said he learned the previous week that SROs were equipped with the gloves and had “countless questions and concerns.”
Omaha Police agreed to the request.
Police Are Not Giving Up Their Other Equipment
Omaha Police Chief Todd Schmaderer has continued to defend the gloves even while agreeing not to have his SROs carry them in OPS schools.
Schmaderer has characterized the device as a lower-force option for officers dealing with someone who needs to be physically controlled.
After meeting Thursday with Ray, OPS Board President Jane Erdenberger, Omaha Mayor John Ewing Jr., and school resource officers, Schmaderer told First Alert 6 that he did not believe anyone’s position had changed.
Removing the gloves also does not mean Omaha SROs will be unarmed.
Schmaderer said officers assigned to OPS schools will continue carrying their standard equipment, including Tasers, pepper spray, batons, and firearms.
The distinction gets at the department’s central argument. Police have presented the glove not as an escalation beyond their existing equipment, but as another option intended to avoid using those other tools.
OPS has reached a different conclusion about whether that option belongs in its schools.
Someone At OPS Knew About The Gloves Years Ago
There is another wrinkle in the dispute.
Ray has said he learned about the devices last week, but Omaha Police says the district had been told about them years earlier.
Emails obtained by KETV Investigates show communication about the G.L.O.V.E. dating to January 2023.
The email chain included Omaha Police and safety officials from four area school districts, including OPS. According to KETV, one OPS employee was involved in communications about the technology over the following three years.
Ray’s name, however, does not appear as a sender, recipient, or copied recipient in the email chain reviewed by the station.
That makes the distinction important. The records indicate someone within OPS had been informed about the technology, but they do not establish that Ray personally knew about it before he says he did.
What they do raise is a separate question about how information concerning a new police use-of-force device made its way through the district.
Bellevue Police Said No
OPS sent essentially the same request to Bellevue Police.
The answer was different.
Bellevue Police Chief Ken Clary declined to stop his officers from carrying the devices, meaning SROs at Bryan High School and Bryan Middle School will continue to have them.
According to First Alert 6, Bellevue officers have carried the gloves for more than three years.
Clary told the station that his department has used them twice and considers the device a safer option than other equipment officers might otherwise have to use.
He also said there have been situations where an officer displaying the glove was enough to gain compliance without activating it.
So, for now, the same school district has two different policies in practice depending on which police department supplies the officer.
Omaha SROs will not carry G.L.O.V.E.s inside OPS schools.
Bellevue SROs will.
The Gloves Are Drawing Attention Far Beyond Omaha
The Omaha controversy comes as the technology faces scrutiny on a much larger scale.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has moved toward acquiring the devices for federal agents, with AP reporting that the agency could spend between $10 million and $20 million on them.
That national attention helped bring renewed scrutiny to Omaha, where the devices had already made their way into schools and been used on students.
For OPS, however, the immediate issue is more local.
The district has now publicly said it does not want officers carrying the devices in its buildings. One police department agreed.
The other did not.