Bellevue Police Keep Shock Gloves in 2 OPS Schools After District Request

Q: If leaked emails prove school staff knew about the shock gloves in 2023, why did the superintendent claim total ignorance?

The most likely explanation is not “total ignorance” by the district, but that Ray meant he personally — and likely the board and top central leadership — were not informed, even though at least one OPS employee was. The leaked emails reported by KETV show that OPS school safety supervisor Donald Morrison was included in a 2023 email chain about G.L.O.V.E. gloves and later wrote in 2025 that, “As a district we looked at it” as a police tool. That undercuts any broad claim that no one inside OPS knew. It does not, by itself, prove Ray personally saw those emails or was briefed on them. Ray’s own later comments point to that distinction. He said the superintendent and board “should have been made aware,” and described the problem as an internal communication failure in which information did not rise from safety staff and school-level contacts to central administration. WOWT also reported Ray’s name did not appear in the email chain reviewed by reporters. So if the emails are authentic, the issue becomes one of wording and accountability. A precise statement would have been that senior OPS leadership and the board were unaware, not that the district as a whole was unaware. Critics will likely argue Ray’s public language overstated the lack of knowledge and obscured that someone inside OPS had been notified years earlier. Supporters would argue the emails expose a breakdown in internal reporting, not necessarily a false statement about his personal knowledge.

3 articles · Updated · WOWT · Aug 19

Bryan Middle and Bryan High School resource officers will keep carrying G.L.O.V.E. shock gloves after Bellevue Police rejected Omaha Public Schools' request to remove them.
Bellevue Police Chief Ken Clary said the department has used the device for more than 3.5 years and considers it safer and less harmful than Tasers, spray, batons or physical restraint.
OPS Superintendent Matthew Ray said he learned only last week that the gloves were being used in schools, exposing communication gaps between the district, police and SROs.
The dispute follows Omaha Police's decision a day earlier to stop carrying shock gloves in OPS schools after reports the devices had been used in 2 local school incidents.
Westside and Millard said they are still reviewing SRO equipment policies as public scrutiny of the gloves spreads across the Omaha area.