The news this week has been full of articles and stories about ICE’s plan to spend $20 million on new ‘Shock Gloves’ which are designed to deliver an electric shock without leaving a mark on the victim.
People are rightfully enraged, stating that this is an escalation which will no doubt lead to more abuse and killing at the hands of an immigration agency that is completely out of control.
I began posting about the gloves because they’re a disability rights issue. The manufacturer states they shouldn’t be used on pregnant people, children or those with disabilities and/or heart conditions. These gloves could be lethal for someone like me with cardiac abnormalities.
The problem is, ICE doesn’t care if you’re disabled. They don’t care if you’re sick. They don’t care if you’re complying. They just want to inflict maximum harm and cause as much fear within the community as possible.
These gloves will accomplish that.
Unlike a taser gun, people won’t see this injury coming.
They won’t have time to defend themselves, ‘comply’, or warn the agents of a disability.
They could convulse, spasm and fall to the ground which ICE could easily frame as ‘resistance’ and escalate the situation. People will die. Someone is going to get shot and killed because their body spasmed out of control after being touched with these gloves.
They don’t belong in the hands of ICE. This agency has proven over and over that they can’t be trusted with weapons of any kind. They’ve murdered US citizens. They’ve murdered undocumented immigrants. Thousands of people are imprisoned and experiencing human rights abuse on a daily basis.
The Shock Gloves have already caused a fatality in a Kentucky prison where it was found they were used for far longer than “acceptable practice”. The victim was shocked repeatedly and two of the shocks lasted “45 and 99 seconds apiece”.
These gloves will kill in the hands of ICE.
But there’s a bigger issue here, which is the way some Americans are becoming inured to the horrors around them.
The country has watched people be killed by ICE. We all saw the shooting of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti. We’ve watched as ICE violently restrain and abuse people. We’ve witnessed them kidnapping children.
We are witnessing atrocities. The violence is being live streamed into our homes every day as if it’s ‘normal’.
We weren’t designed to see people be tortured and killed on a daily basis. It impacts the psyche. People slowly accept it as the status quo and become complacent. They stop resisting things that would have enraged them in the past.
Image Description: A pair of black ‘Shock Gloves’ on a grey and bright yellow background.
Which Brings Me to Shock Gloves in Schools.
People are mobilizing to try and prevent Shock Gloves from landing in the hands of ICE, but they’re already in American schools in Nebraska. They’ve been used on two students, and no one is talking about it.
Everyone is outraged that ICE will have access to these devices, yet Omaha and Bellevue have been quietly outfitting schools with them for months. Preparing to use them on your children. On minors. On kids who should have an expectation of safety.
How did the parents in these school districts allow this to happen? How have we decided it’s ok to ‘discipline’ school aged children with shock gloves that have been described as ‘torture devices’?
Kids will die. Kids will become disabled. It’s only a matter of time. People don’t always know they have a cardiac condition until something happens to them. If you shock a kid with a heart issue, you could easily kill them. Not to mention the PTSD that’s going to occur as children witness their friends being tasered at the hands of ‘resource officers’.
The manufacturer of the gloves specifically states that they are not safe for use on children, so how have they worked their way into the school system?
Why aren’t people mobilizing to get them removed before more kids are subjected to this cruel and unusual punishment?
Disabled Kids Were the Canaries in the Coal Mine
Did you know that shock devices were already being used in schools and institutions for disabled children?
The Shock Gloves may be new, but using electrocution on kids to ‘correct’ behaviour is something that’s been going on for decades within the disability community.
I’ve said many times that atrocities are often committed on disabled people first. The ruling class tests things on our community because they know most people see us as expendable.
They know they can do horrible things to disabled people and society at large won’t even notice.
The FDA actually banned the use of shock devices on disabled kids in 2020, but the decision was overturned by the US Court of Appeal for the District of Columbia.
There was no public outcry. No one mobilized to protect these children. There was no media coverage. Disabled kids have continued to endure shocks and abuse while the rest of the world looked away.
Please understand that the underlying ableism in our society made it possible for the mistreatment of disabled children in schools. The precedent set in these institutions paved the way for the Shock Gloves to enter the Nebraska school system.
Had society pushed back harder and protected disabled kids, we likely wouldn’t see these torture devices being used on the non disabled population.
There can be no social justice without disability justice, and now more than ever we must pay close attention to what’s being done to disabled people as it offers a glimpse into what the fascists will do next.
They Want You to Normalize Atrocities
This is what happens under fascism. Rights become eroded. People are mistreated. Freedoms stripped away. It starts with the most vulnerable and gradually spreads to the entire population.
Like the frog in boiling water, many people don’t realize what’s happening until it’s way past too late.
America is a pot of boiling water… and it won’t be long until the whole country becomes the proverbial frog who didn’t know they were being killed.
This isn’t just about ICE. It’s not just about immigration. It’s not just about disability.
This is a fight for the future of an entire country and in many ways, the rest of the world.
People must recognize and accept that they’re witnessing unspeakable evil every single day, and if they don’t resist, they are becoming a part of the problem.
I’m not saying you need to be out marching in the streets every day, but you do need to speak up. You do need to fight for the marginalized people in your lives. You need to stand up and protect the people the regime is targeting.
You need to say ‘enough is enough’.
Too many people are accepting these horrors because they believe the violence will never land on their door step, but they’re wrong.
Fascism always escalates, and no one is safe.
I guarantee you the kids in Nebraska didn’t think they would be subjected to Shock Gloves in schools, just like the thousands of immigrants rotting away in concentration camps didn’t expect that to happen either.
I still believe there’s time to change course. I still believe there’s more of us than there are of them.
I believe that if we use our voices for good, if we refuse to accept atrocities as the status quo, we can save lives.
If nothing else, speaking out helps victims feel less alone. It lets them know there are still good people in the world who care about them. It shows those in power that we know what they’re trying to do and we do not consent.
We will not comply.
We won’t go gently.
We won’t sit idly by while shock gloves become the norm on our streets, in our schools, jails and hospitals.
We won’t be quiet while immigrants are rounded up and thrown into camps.
We won’t look away as trans people are stripped of basic human rights.
We won’t shrug and go about our day as pregnant people lose the right to abortion and bleed out and die.
We won’t accept atrocities. We won’t get comfortable with the status quo. We won’t allow fascism to win.
I don’t have the answers, but for now I ask that people spread the word about these shock gloves being used in schools.
Share this article. Support local independent journalists in Nebraska who’ve been trying to sound the alarm on this issue. Make sure people know these gloves have already been used on children.
The more of us talking about the issue, the easier it will be to make a difference. Hopefully we can get these gloves removed from the schools before they kill or disable someone, and we can prevent them from being deployed in any other districts across the country.
Whatever happens, don’t ever doubt that one voice can make a difference. You can shine a light in the dark.
It can feel utterly hopeless, but you have power. You have a say. You have the ability to help others.
That’s what separates us from them. May we never forget it.
Update: After public outcry Omaha has stated they plan to remove the gloves. Many other school districts in Nebraska are still using them, so keep up the pressure and protect all students!
How was this decided to use in schools in Nebraska? Who thought this would be appropriate? Enlighten me. I want names.
Nice to see you posting again - as always, Bob