TEXAS — School police officers in Texas used force—including tasers, tackles, and handcuffs—against students in more than 2,600 documented incidents from January 2022 through December 2025. Many of these incidents began over minor infractions such as dress-code violations, vaping, or schoolyard fights.

Students as young as 6 were handcuffed, and teenagers were arrested, charged with crimes, and jailed following encounters with school police. Some students were hospitalized with bruises or concussions after being body-slammed or shocked with Tasers, which are prohibited in Texas juvenile detention facilities but permitted in public schools.

In the Judson school district, an officer slammed a 15-year-old boy onto a table after he threw a cheese stick at another student, according to public records. The district later stated the officer used “necessary force to gain control of the situation.” In Cypress-Fairbanks, a 10-year-old boy with a behavioral disorder was hogtied by an officer after kicking the principal; the district subsequently banned the hogtie restraint.

Tayshawn Chadwick, 17, was suspended from his school in the Aldine district in December 2023 for threatening to fight another student. When he tried to retrieve his house keys from a classroom before leaving campus, an officer pinned him against a window and another shocked him repeatedly with a Taser. “It felt like a lightning bolt,” Chadwick said. He was charged with resisting arrest and jailed; the charge was later dismissed after he completed an anger-management program.

Officers sometimes escalated situations by shouting obscenities or insults. Physical takedowns occurred in about 60 cases when students ignored commands, talked back, or pulled away. Texas school police departments are not required to report use-of-force incidents unless someone is shot, and no state agency routinely reviews their actions.