Over the last five years, law enforcement officers have tackled, struck, grabbed, pepper-sprayed and handcuffed Omaha-area students on school property, according to records reviewed by the Flatwater Free Press.

In all, school resource officers from the Omaha Police Department and the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office have used force on students at least 63 times since the start of 2021. They have used force on and handcuffed students as young as 11 and 12.

Black children were the students who were subjected to force the majority of those times, although Black students make up roughly 15% of the current school population where the agencies provide their officers. 

The recent news that some local resource officers carry electric shock gloves caused outrage from parents and set off a broader public discussion on policing in schools. 

After an Omaha school board meeting at which many parents expressed their opposition to the gloves, Omaha Public Schools officials asked that the officers assigned to the district stop carrying them. OPD agreed to the request. However, its officers continue to carry the gloves in the Elkhorn, Millard and Westside school districts, where they also provide school resource officers. 

Officers and school administrators say these officers, generally referred to as SROs, are crucial to ensure the safety of students and teachers while helping to foster positive, early relationships between youths and law enforcement. But advocates and community experts worry that officers may be used too often to handle routine discipline, particularly on minority students. 

Resource officers with OPD currently serve 34 schools in the Omaha area with a total population of over 39,000 students. 

Since the start of 2021, their SROs have used force on students 33 times across 14 schools, according to incident report data provided by OPD in response to a public records request. 

The frequency of force used in schools is comparable to standard patrol officer interactions with the public, said Neal Bonacci, a spokesman for OPD. “It’s less than a percent,” he said, when considering “the thousands of contacts that these SROs have (regularly) with students and parents and staff.” 

In that time frame, OPD officers have also made over 1,000 arrests on school property, according to data provided by the department. 

The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office provides SROs to 10 schools, with around 8,600 students total. Between August 2021 and August of this year, they have used force on students 30 times, according to the office’s incident data.

Schools can be vulnerable environments, said Sgt. Mandy Peth, who oversees the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office SRO team. If a situation requires force, that doesn’t change just because the situation may involve a student, she said, “especially when there’s a lot of other innocent lives in the immediate area, then it would be no different.”

“We have a duty to protect everybody else in that school,” Peth said, “and so we receive a lot of training in use of force, and the goal is always going to be to use as little as possible, but be effective.” 

***

Resource officers were introduced into Nebraska schools over half a century ago, when Lincoln Public Schools piloted the first program with the Lincoln Police Department in 1971. Now, SRO programs exist statewide.

In 2019, state legislation sought to better define the role of resource officers, carving out the position as separate from school disciplinarians. Both school districts and law enforcement agencies say SROs are legally involved with students only when it comes to criminal or safety matters. But some experts say Nebraska still lacks detailed guidelines on when officer involvement is justified.

By definition, resource officers are like any other sworn officer, said Mo Canady, executive director for the National Association of School Resource Officers. Their assignment is very different from a patrol assignment, he said, because these officers must operate under the contracts between school districts and law enforcement agencies while reporting to their respective agencies. 

The officers themselves are subject to the same policies as all other patrol officers, including on use of force and weapons. 

“The idea is that they work in conjunction with the educators,” Canady said. “They’re there to support them. You know, they’re their teammate, but they are supervised by the law enforcement side of the fence.”

OPD Capt. Steve Meister, who oversees the department’s SROs, said he thinks their role has evolved over the years from solely addressing outside threats to a more community-based approach. SROs are not in schools “just as a law enforcement officer anymore,” he said.

These officers provide support to students, work with youth and family specialists, help out in classrooms and aid lockdown drills, Meister said. They may help threat assessment teams with investigations, make referrals to mental health co-responders and direct referrals from Child and Family Services. 

Sgt. Peth, with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, said an SRO’s primary role is to ensure everyone’s safety and build relationships with students and staff. They often also lead educational presentations and provide security for after-school events. 

Resource officers are called to intervene in situations with students when safety is at risk or when a crime has been committed, both Peth and Meister said. 

In a shooting last month outside Omaha’s Burke High School, an SRO with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office helped locate and treat a 17-year-old boy who had been shot in the arm by a fellow student during an altercation. The SRO then helped OPD officers and the department’s SRO at Burke to secure the scene. 

Peth said that while SROs receive additional training on de-escalation and may assist with student behavior, their job is not to issue detentions or discipline students. 

“Am I capable of supervising children? Yes, I would hope so, but that’s not my role,” she said, “just like if the roles are reversed and you do need somebody to step in in a law enforcement role. You know, the school nurse shouldn’t have to break up a fight, right?”

Resource officers also can address violent situations in schools with more authority than a standard security officer, Peth said. With an SRO present, victims can choose to file a police report directly and have the option to press charges later on, which may aid victims. Whereas if an SRO wasn’t there, Peth said, a violent student could receive only in-school consequences or a suspension. 

But others say embedding law enforcement in schools can criminalize student behavior that would otherwise be handled by school officials, with disparate effects on students of color, those with disabilities or those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

At a Sept. 1 Omaha City Council meeting, Jason Witmer, policy strategist for the ACLU of Nebraska, voiced opposition to a permanent police presence in schools, viewing it as a threat to the civil rights and liberties of students. 

“Our schools should not be a place where students with disabilities or students struggling become subject to gateways into the criminal legal system. Nor should the potential of use of police weaponry on children in schools be normalized,” Witmer said. 

Omaha resource officers received greater scrutiny after media reports noted they had used shock gloves on students twice, with many parents and community members denouncing the use of the gloves in schools. 

Elizabeth Eynon-Kokrda, co-founder and general counsel for the Omaha-based nonprofit Education Rights Counsel, said equipping SROs with such tools can counteract the idea that they aren’t to use corporal punishment in schools.

“Officers are trained to engage in what’s called pain compliance,” she said. “They’re trained to obtain behaviors by inflicting pain. That’s what shock gloves do.”

Besides the use of the gloves, OPD SROs have also used chemical agents, such as pepper spray or pepperballs, six times in schools since the start of 2021, according to incident data. Half the time they were used on individual students ages 12, 16 and 17. The other half involved groups of students, which OPD spokesman Bonacci said generally refers to crowd-disperal situations, such as breaking up disorderly crowds at a football game.

The other 25 use-of-force incidents involving SROs and students in schools note a range of physical force used by the officers. 

In 2023, an OPD officer lifted a 15-year-old Millard South High student before bringing him to the ground, a takedown technique known as a “Lift and Dump,” for an incident of alleged disorderly conduct.

That officer also used force on Millard South students at least three other times, including in a 2015 incident where a video showed him punching a student multiple times, while breaking up  a fight. 

That officer was reinstated as Millard South’s SRO in 2016 after an internal investigation found his use of force to be within OPD policy. He appears to have since retired from OPD.

The current resource officer at Millard South has used physical force on students four different times between February and October 2025, where student obstruction, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct were all alleged, according to incident data.

Another OPD officer used physical force on students three times in the last five years, once on a 17-year-old Benson High student over an alleged assault in 2023 and twice on 12- and 14-year-old boys at McMillan Middle School in 2022, over alleged incidents of disorderly conduct and trespassing.

Since the start of 2021, OPD resource officers have used force on students most in connection with incidents in which students were accused of disorderly conduct — generally, Bonacci said,  officers breaking up fights between students. 

The force used in all school incidents from the last five years was within policy, Bonacci said. Officers allegedly violated department policy in some of those incidents, he said, such as by  using inappropriate language or by not promptly turning on their body camera, but none were related to the use of force.

One Douglas County sheriff’s deputy used physical force, handcuffs or both on students seven different times between September 2022 and January 2025, according to office use-of-force reports reviewed by Flatwater. In multiple incidents, the SRO brought students to the ground or used muscling techniques, defined in policy as joint locks, pressure points or control holds, to get the student to comply. The officer also pointed a Taser at a student.

The SRO was responding to student fights in some of the incidents, and once was requested by administration to assist with an allegedly intoxicated student, according to reports.

In one incident, when the deputy was helping to break up a fight between students, the officer placed a knee on a 16-year-old Black girl’s lower back after she allegedly attempted to punch the deputy. In another, the officer swept a 17-year-old Black girl’s legs, causing her to fall face down before handcuffing her. The student had allegedly trespassed and fought with another student.

A different Douglas County deputy used hands-on force on students ages 12 to 13 five different times in a year, between February of 2022 and 2023. In multiple incidents, to get students to comply, the officer grabbed a child’s arm and lifted them. That officer also put an 11-year-old Black boy on the ground to handcuff him in an incident last year. 

The SRO had been contacted to assist with student behavior by school administrators or parents in most of the incidents, according to reports.

Another Douglas County deputy used physical force, including muscling techniques, and handcuffs on students five different times between 2023 and 2025. 

The rest of Douglas County’s SROs were involved in three or fewer distinct use-of-force incidents in schools between August 2021 and August of this year.

During that time, all incidents were found to be within policy or required no further review, according to records. A majority of those incidents also involved requests by school administrators or parents for SRO assistance, a spokesman for the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office said.

The Sheriff’s Office’s deputies do not carry the shock gloves.

***

Every school district contacted by Flatwater for this story — Omaha Public Schools, Bellevue, Elkhorn, Millard and Westside — declined requests to interview their superintendent or their district’s school safety director. 

In an email, an OPS spokeswoman said that teachers are directed to first report any serious behavior to school administrators. The administrators, in turn, are expected to contact SROs in cases of “arson, a firearm, distribution of drugs or alcohol, and sexual assault,” or other matters involving physical safety.

Spokespeople for Millard and Westside said in emails that their SROs work in a law enforcement capacity only when requested by school administration or in situations where there is an imminent threat to students or staff. Parents or guardians are notified when students are questioned or detained by an SRO, they said. 

Elkhorn schools’ spokeswoman said in an email that teachers report any issues directly to school administrators, who inform SROs if a crime or suspected crime has been committed.

Amanda Oliver, spokeswoman for Bellevue Public Schools, said there is no district policy mandating which behaviors are referred to SROs. Students may be referred to officers by administrators for offenses including assault, sexual misconduct, bullying, weapons, vandalism, drug or traffic offenses and “disruptions to the education environment,” Oliver said in an email.

Bellevue police provide SROs to Bellevue Public Schools and two OPS schools that sit within Bellevue city limits. Officers in their department carry the shock gloves.

If a situation amounts to a crime, Oliver said, “students will be afforded all of their legal rights as required by law,” and school officials will notify parents or guardians as soon as possible, unless the SRO requests that police be the ones to notify them.

***

When Katy Eilers first learned officers at OPS carried the shock gloves, she called her son’s school, Millard North High, to ask if the officer there did, too. 

In a recorded conversation shared by Eilers, Rebecca Kleeman, spokeswoman for Millard Public Schools, returned her call, confirming they did. At this realization, Eilers, on the verge of tears, asked Kleeman if she could guarantee the officer would know about her 16-year-old son’s heart condition and not shock him. 

“I am not the least bit worried about this, but I can sure tell you are,” Kleeman responded, “and I want to keep you on the phone until I can reassure you.” 

Kleeman then asked her, “Is your son going to slam someone to the floor and try to kill them?” 

Eilers responded no. 

“Is he going to pull a weapon on someone in the middle of the school and try to kill somebody at school?” Kleeman asked. 

“No, ma’am,” Eilers said again. 

“Your son’s going to be just fine, ma’am,” Kleeman responded. 

Kleeman said in an email to Flatwater that she was trying to reassure Eilers and convey that officer use of force in schools is rare, reserved for situations presenting an imminent threat to students or staff. On reflection, Kleeman said, she would have conveyed that to Eilers with less extreme examples.

But Eilers remains unassured. She said she knows SROs can use force on students for nonviolent situations, too, ones where they may simply be resisting. And her son, who has autism, can have outbursts or difficulty communicating. 

“It crosses my mind at least once a day if my son’s going to get misinterpreted or something,” she said, “And get the glove instead of the care he needs.”

This story was originally published by Flatwater Free Press, an independent, nonprofit newsroom focused on investigations and feature stories in Nebraska that matter. Read the article at: https://flatwaterfreepress.org/school-resource-officers-in-omaha-area-schools-have-used-force-on-students-dozens-of-times-since-21/