In Texas, as in other states where unrestricted access to guns has led to an epidemic of gun violence and fear of mass shootings, the result has been an increased presence of police and accompanying police brutality inside institutions of learning.
The New York Times offers a grueling account of a detailed investigation into policing policy and practice inside Texas public schools. Shocking stuff, even for a state governed by a supermajority of christofascists.
Clips:
. . . the constant presence of officers has transformed the way many public schools manage discipline, subjecting students to heavy-handed police tactics for behavior that once would have landed them only in the principal’s office, The New York Times and The San Antonio Express-News found.
Officers in Texas displayed startling belligerence at times, grabbing or tackling students a fraction of their size over misconduct that often appeared to be minor. Children in elementary school, including one as young as 6, were handcuffed. Teenagers were arrested, charged with crimes and even jailed. In the most extreme cases, they wound up in hospitals, bruised or concussed, after being body-slammed or shocked by Tasers, which are prohibited in the state’s juvenile detention facilities but allowed in its public schools. . . .
. . . in Texas, no state agency has the power to routinely review school officers’ actions and weigh in on possible overreach.
Lawmakers here have embraced school policing without establishing safeguards required for meaningful accountability, policing experts said. A 2019 law meant to keep officers out of “routine student discipline” does not define the term or detail repercussions for violations. Police departments in Texas are not required to report incidents of force in schools unless they shoot someone.
