EDITORIAL: Police, schools must curtail excessive, inappropriate use of force on students

Far too many public school-based police officers in Texas - along with their supervisors and school administrators - are comfortable with using inappropriate and excessive force on students.

An article by New York Times investigative journalists in collaboration with Express-News reporters chronicles this troubling trend, revealing how the adults who are supposed to be protecting Texas youth instead threaten them.

The reporters who examined this risk identified more than 2,600 use-of-force incidents from January 2022 through December 2025.

Sadly, the true number is likely much higher. This is because there is no comprehensive database for tracking incidents across the state's roughly 1,200 school districts. And when journalists asked for information from school districts and police agencies, many declined to disclose such data while others never responded to public records requests.

Despite such obstacles, which are seemingly by design, the records reporters obtained - including video footage of multiple incidents - show a pattern of adults displaying a lack of regard for students' physical safety, not to mention their basic rights and dignity.

The video of a school police officer in Irving intervening in a cafeteria fight is particularly frightening as the officer pulls a boy from behind and in a continuous motion slams him onto a metal cart. The risk of horrific injury - broken bones, concussion and even paralysis - from the boy's head and neck slamming into uneven metal surfaces is unequivocal.

The behavior reporters described suggests that many of those involved in these incidents view students less as people to serve and protect and more as masses to control. Consider three alarming data points:

* Tasers are prohibited in Texas juvenile detention facilities, yet they are allowed in public schools and have been used to shock students.

* More than 1,000 officers who are employed by Texas school districts previously worked as jailers. It's no wonder anecdotal evidence shows too many law enforcement officers in schools approach students like they would adult inmates. It should be obvious this is inappropriate and fraught with peril. Moreover, just as not everyone has the temperament for being a law enforcement officer, not all officers have the temperament compatible with being around youth.

* The state-mandated training for school police officers - which supposedly addresses child psychology, conflict resolution and behavioral issues - is only 20 hours. That's less than half the minimum recommended by the National Association of School Resource Officers and one-sixth as much training as Kentucky requires for officers in public schools, according to the Times investigation.

These and other realities reflect the cavalier attitude Texas has collectively adopted. It's as if we have decided that with nearly 5.5 million students enrolled in Texas public schools from kindergarten through 12th grade, it's no big deal if we break a few thousand.

But it goes deeper than that, seemingly reflecting the human tendency to seek the path of least resistance, regardless of how destructive it may be for others, over the more difficult path of conflict resolution.

Perhaps we have paved that smoother road with otherwise good intentions of protecting students in the wake of so many horrific school shootings, including the May 2022 attack at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde that killed 19 fourth-graders and two teachers. In response, lawmakers in 2023 passed a bill to require at least one licensed police officer in every public school.

But along with the earnest desire to be ready for the next attack has come an openness to deploying emergency forces in everyday school discipline.

It's particularly unnerving that such a way of viewing students is not solely exhibited by police officers but shared by some school officials.

The New York Times report found many use-of-force incidents started as behavioral issues typical among youth whose brains and impulse control are still developing and who need guidance far more than physical domination.

But instead of handling such behavior with the pedagogical skills one should expect, school resource officers are often called in, irrespective of a law passed in 2019 that says school boards should not task officers with routine student discipline.

The adage about hammers seeing problems as nails too often plays out in predictable outcomes. Responding with force by officers who carry guns and Tasers means not having to engage with students to resolve conflicts.

That inability to see and hear seems prevalent in the case of a 4-foot-11 high school girl who sought to explain to an assistant principal that she did not steal a piece of a doorbell that broke as she was ringing it.

Instead, the administrator called in the cavalry, who shoved the girl's face into the ground while handcuffing her. Then, that assistant principal ate a snack while the student had a breathing attack next to her desk.

Other disturbing incidents documented on video include an officer smashing a 14-year-old student's face into a wall in response to vaping, and an officer pepper-spraying a girl who was on the floor and then kneeing her in the face after a hallway fight.

As for the officer who yanked a brawling boy from behind and slamming him backward onto a metal cafeteria cart, it's difficult to imagine that whatever was going through this officer's mind had anything to do with the well-being of youth. Along those lines, such violent aggression highlights a stark incongruity.

While no responsible adult should suggest not intervening in a student melee, we must hold paramount that the primary goal of doing so is to prevent students from hurting each other. If officers interceding cause more physical harm to students than they would have to each other, it makes little sense to have them there.

To say otherwise is to lose sight of our societal obligation to children, which dictates the need for de-escalation and sound judgment should be higher in schools than in the community at large.

So, too, is the need for accountability, but that seems to be scarce. Besides the dearth of thorough and reviewable documentation of use-of-force incidents, the New York Times reporters encountered a void in taking responsibility.

The report concludes that no state agency in Texas is empowered to routinely review school officers' actions for cases of police overreach. Moreover, it cited policing experts in finding that Texas lawmakers "have embraced school policing without establishing safeguards required for meaningful accountability."

The discontinuity in this regard is unnerving. State officials said school boards and police agencies are responsible for oversight, while two dozen board members from across Texas told reporters they did not consider that part of their job.

So it's not surprising that several school board members were unaware that officers in their districts used force on students.

Meanwhile, when parents file complaints, they are generally ignored. For the most part, department leaders are the final arbiters of whether force was justified and properly employed. Not surprisingly, in the more than 100 incident forms reviewed by reporters, supervisors nearly always concluded the use of force was appropriate.

While records show some parents complained to the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, the agency says it can investigate excessive force complaints only when an officer has been charged criminally. Courts have routinely rejected lawsuits, with one finding using a Taser on a 17-year-old boy with an intellectual disability was merely a form of corporal punishment, which is legal in Texas.

In the Lone Star State, we revere toughness. But in schools "tough on crime" has seamlessly morphed into "tough on kids." And under that unspoken mantra, abuse of force is ignored, excused and even condoned.

People are quick to condemn parents who let frustration give way to physical abuse, but a badge seems to excuse violent actions.

Somehow, we have abandoned expecting better from people entrusted with authority - people who signed up for and are supposedly trained to deal with difficult situations.

It becomes even worse when we abandon that ideal with our children.

School-age youth have no effective voice when it comes to education policy, so if adults don't stand up for them, uncaring administrators and set-in-their-ways district law enforcement officials will continue doing as they please with impunity.

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This story was originally published June 3, 2026 at 4:40 PM.