Before high school, kids are coddled and even lied to, to shield them from ‘gross’ realities of adulthood. A sheriff at an elementary school will smile and wave to the kids - but in a high school? When suddenly evolution has begun pouring rancor-amounts of chemicals over a teenager’s brain, when suspicion is behind the eyes of adults, and the emotional or physical violence of their peers and even from potential romantic partners is around them always? Now they are suddenly expected to act like adults while having none of the freedoms. If any four passions could describe what fills a teenager’s mind, I would wager they are probably: rage, sorrow, humiliation, and desire. 

 When I was a summer camp counselor in my mid-twenties, I spent many evenings sitting under oak trees, just listening to sixteen and seventeen-year-olds pour out their souls. Sometimes the fixation of their emotion was valid, and sometimes it teetered on the ridiculous. It was, however, often that they would say something to me like, “Man, you really listen. I wish ‘so-n-so’ in my life would listen.” Heck, after that job I went to work at Boys Town as a Youth Behavioral Specialist for a short while and saw the other end of the spectrum when it comes to behavior. 

Yet still, in any of my frustrations over a decade of child work, I would think to use a barely tested glove that electrocutes people on children. Nebraska Public Media reported that on June 3rd, 2025, the Omaha City Council voted unanimously to buy 40 pairs of gloves (at around $66,000) for police officers, which send an electrical shock through the skin of those who are touched by them. 29 School Resource Officers have been trained to use them. From the documents that were given to the City Council, the gloves are intended “as another use of force option with the goal of de-escalating and preventing use of force situation(s)”. 

It has also been reported that no one spoke at the Omaha City Council meeting. That seems odd for a “compliance" device which would be used on kids. You'd think that there would be some debate or conversation about it, no?

These G.L.O.V.E.s (generated low output voltage emitter) are described by the parent company, Compliant Technologies, as a non-lethal device. To be fair to those who support this action, they have since been used twice in Omaha. They were used the first time on a middle school child who threatened a paraprofessional, struck officers, and threw a chair. Certainly some sort of intervention seems needed there. In the second case, a person of high-school age was trying to get into a school. He was non-compliant to commands, and so the glove was used on him.

Though the glove is marketed as a “non-lethal device,” its own manual says that it can “increase blood pressure, change blood chemistry, increase respiration, increase heart rate, change cardiac rhythm, and increase adrenaline.” And though the device has been reportedly used across the country by ICE and some law enforcement for at least a year or more now, there has only been one peer-reviewed, scientific study about the gloves: “Electrical Safety and Performance of the GLOVE Relative to Relevant Requirements of International Electrical Standards,” by Jiang and Panezcu.

The paper did not test for long-term biological health changes in teenagers or… anyone. They only tested the gloves on animal skins to make sure the gloves comply with international electrical standards. There is, as far as I can find, no scientific study done to determine neurological effects, developmental changes, or anything else related to biology or health. There is no established ‘safe’ number of shocks, and though the parent company of the glove says that no electricity passes beyond the skin…. They also say that the gloves shouldn't be used on pregnant women, or the elderly, or children, or on a neck, face, groin, or chest. 

So, only legs and arms? What happens one day when an officer reaches for an arm and misses, brushing across a face? Or over a teenager’s heart? This isn’t a “police are bad" article - they already have hard as hell jobs and will likely take any tools to make it easier. I, however, posit that children who refuse commands don’t deserve to have an electrical current (which is reportedly very painful) passed into their body. The Mayor of Omaha, Ewing Jr. and our police chief said, "We believe the tool to be a less-impactful option than other force-tools like the taser.”

But their proposition of “less harmful than a taser” is not the same as "proven safe to be used on children." The gloves have no proven or peer-reviewed studies behind them other than the manufacturer saying, “Trust us, we did the studying for you. This is a lower use-of-force tool than tasers. Also, don't use this on anyone ever except adults and teenagers, only if they are healthy, and only on their arms or legs." 

Some people can resist tasers more than others — what happens if these gloves don't work very well on a teenage boy’s arms in a scuffle? "...and increase adrenaline” as a listed side effect? Then there is a bigger problem and a larger chance the glove touches somewhere else. But that counterargument to the gloves is still allowing the proverbial argumentative needle to move beyond the bare minimum of: there are no peer scientific studies on the long-term impact on the health of a child.

I am not against using these gloves on criminals who are actively trying to hurt others; and I am also not against police stopping teenagers. As mentioned above, teenagers are drowning internally in the chemicals of two million years of human evolution and often make really stupid choices to sate some false or real internal urge. Sometimes they are internally hurting for incredibly small reasons, and sometimes for really big reasons, and those hurt-people, hurt people. 

A day after finishing up initial work on this article, Omaha Public Schools requested that the Omaha Police Department cease use of the gloves. As per KETV: “OPS Superintendent Matthew Ray told KETV on Wednesday that Omaha Police agreed to remove the shock gloves, while Bellevue Police did not.” The OPS Superintendent mentioned that the officers working in Bryan Middle and High School are under the jurisdiction of Bellevue. He also said, “The Omaha Police Department gave us the option of not having the gloves on the belt. That’s the option...they didn’t give us the option of anything else on their belt.”

Omaha Public School Board member Gini Magnuson said of this, “I do not support the use of any pain compliance with our students, including pepper spray, tasers, and electric shock gloves.” As far as I can find (as of sending this article to my publisher), the pain-compliance gloves are still in use in Elkhorn, Millard, and Westside Public schools. It's not usually my thing to beat a dead horse, so beyond briefly shaming OPS for only changing their stance after a year and recent spotlight on the issue of the gloves, attention should be turned to the other districts for their continued availability for use on students. 

For the near-peer electrical device, which one would or could draw assumptions from for electricity used as a weapon on human bodies, TASER’s, The JAMA Network hosts a peer-reviewed article titled: “Human Health Risks of Conducted Electrical Weapons Exposure: A systematic Review,” By Baliatsas, Gerbecks. The research found: 

“Most of the existing studies recruited healthy and physically fit individuals and had important methodological limitations. It is unlikely that the existing evidence constitutes a good representation of real-life field situations. There is no clear picture of the possible health risks in humans on the basis of rigorously assessed scientific evidence from the international peer-reviewed literature.”

Does the method of getting non-compliant children to comply have to involve electrocuting them? With technologies for which no studies have been done on the long-term health of a developing child? I do not consent, nor do I appreciate, as a citizen of Omaha, that our City Council had no discussion, nor dissent among themselves, when voting for the gloves. I wonder if there was any expert on child electrocution consulted before the purchase was made? At least some schools have been able to pull back and remove pain-compliance electrical gloves from use on students. 

Austin Petak is an aspiring novelist and freelance journalist who loves seeking stories and the quiet passions of the soul. If you are interested in reaching out to him to cover a story, you may find him at austinpetak@gmail.com.

Opinions expressed by columnists in The Daily Record are not necessarily those of its management or staff, and do not constitute an endorsement or recommendation. Any errors or omissions should be called to our attention so that they may be corrected. Contact us at news@omahadailyrecord.com.