Electric shock gloves in use by police departments in Bellevue, Omaha

(nebraskapublicmedia.org)

30 points | by rendx 1 hour ago

13 comments

  • dtagames 1 hour ago
    Ghandi said you can judge a society by how it treats animals.

    And to that we can add "and it's schoolchildren."

  • kstrauser 44 minutes ago
    How compatible are these with a super soaker filled with saline? Asking for a friend.
  • Havoc 45 minutes ago
    From afar the US is really sounding quite scary lately
    • kstrauser 44 minutes ago
      From anear, too.
    • MYEUHD 42 minutes ago
      This is nothing new for US

      Look up Guantanamo Bay and Abu Gharib

    • api 41 minutes ago
      People get what they voted for.
      • skinfaxi 33 minutes ago
        The polls have been pretty divisive and relatively narrow, haven't they? A tyranny of the simple majority.
        • api 4 minutes ago
          Most don’t vote. That’s a form of voting.

          A lot who don’t vote have this mistaken idea that “well nobody perfectly fits my values.” They never will. It’s always a vote for what you think is a somewhat better outcome, especially if you only have two options.

  • rendx 1 hour ago
    Compliant Technologies Glove 4&5 User Manual https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cQ176YYgNl3VXCgLX0ScoihsfXy...
    • donkey_brains 43 minutes ago
      “The device is not effective through clothing or hair and can be degraded on individuals and animals that are extremely hairy.”

      Black bloc for protesting is going to become more popular.

      • whycome 34 minutes ago
        Sometimes something like a hulking Austrian body builder seems like a weird design for a human killing machine. Then real life suggests people may wear hairy gorilla suits to avoid pain compliance gloves during protests.
      • ceejayoz 34 minutes ago
        They're more for post-detainment torture. They'll keep shooting Black Bloc folks in the face from afar with 40mm tear gas canisters as they do currently.

        https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/08/ice-shock-glove...

        > “In today’s society, you know, everybody’s filming everything, everybody has a cell phone,” Glueck said. If an officer punches someone on camera, that can go viral in an instant; even a standard taser leaves puncture wounds. But “the glove is low optic, and it looks better on video, and it looks better to those witnesses. With a glove, there are no burn marks or scars.”

  • vlovich123 1 hour ago
    Setting aside the morality of these vs other force options, these run at $1650/pair if I’m reading it correctly - $66k for 40. Anyone else find it like an insane amount of money for a device that’s so simple?
    • Aachen 56 minutes ago
      Feel free to recreate and calibrate and guarantee safe shock levels to offer it cheaper if that fits your morals
      • rootusrootus 52 minutes ago
        Why is there a requirement to guarantee it safe? I don't believe that requirement exists for tasers, for example, which are just considered less lethal. Same for rubber bullets.
        • nine_k 42 minutes ago
          If you're selling it as a nonlethal weapon, you should somehow make certain it's not going to kill except by freak accident, and cannot be used to kill deliberately.

          Also, consider the safely of the police officer.

      • kstrauser 41 minutes ago
        Safe shock levels is a naive myth. What if the person had a pacemaker? What if they’re wet? What if one person is grabbed by the bicep and forearm, and another is grabbed by the chest and face? It’s completely impossible to assign one value, or even range, that’s both safe and effective for all commonplace variations.
        • skeledrew 34 minutes ago
          All covered in the article. Touching face, chest, groin, etc is forbidden. And the shock is local to the touched area (unlike tasers).
          • kennywinker 30 minutes ago
            And i’m sure they’re follow those rules to the letter. Like how they always fire rubber bullet at the ground the way they are designed to be used and never directly at journalists

            https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/lapd-laure...

          • ceejayoz 33 minutes ago
            > Touching face, chest, groin, etc is forbidden.

            Sure, just like beating a suspect is.

            • skeledrew 13 minutes ago
              Yep and the point is moot in that sense. There are those who will use the gloves as prescribed, same they wouldn't stoop to beating up a person of interest, etc. And there are those who will go directly for the sensitive areas out of spite, whether it be with glove, baton, gun butt or fist.
          • rhplus 28 minutes ago
            > Touching face, chest, groin, etc is forbidden.

            It’s really hard to believe that an officer who’s wrestling someone hand-to-hand, possibly on the ground or against a wall, is going to restrain themselves from grabbing face or chest in the heat of the moment.

        • ishouldstayaway 36 minutes ago
          That is exactly the point you are responding to. There is no such thing as "safe shock levels".

          This is just Taser(tm) all over again.

    • xboxnolifes 32 minutes ago
      Sounds pretty cheap to me for such a niche product. How many electric glove suppliers (and buyers) do you think there are?
    • whycome 37 minutes ago
      Do these really need to be sold as pairs? I suspect one GLOVE would be adequate?
    • tamimio 55 minutes ago
      Just add “tactical” to any product you make and you can charge 40% extra.
      • Mtinie 34 minutes ago
        A “tactical wedding” is an absolute goldmine.
  • asdefghyk 31 minutes ago
    I always though in order to be able use these gadgets, The user should be required to submit themselves to its use on themselves. That includes stun guns and these hand shock gadgets.
  • piyh 49 minutes ago
    The Legend of Korra come to life
  • ungreased0675 44 minutes ago
    I want the police to have a lot of options available to them, to avoid the “everything looks like a nail” problem.

    Something about this feels icky though. Maybe because it’s easy to imagine this being misused or abused.

    • ceejayoz 43 minutes ago
      > I want the police to have a lot of options available to them, to avoid the “everything looks like a nail” problem.

      That was the idea behind tasers - that they'd reduce use of guns.

      In reality, they now get used in scenarios where less (or no) force used to be more normal. Why learn de-escalation techniques when you can just shoot a taser?

      https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/police-use-force-impact-...

      > A critical research question is whether officers can become too reliant on CEDs. During interviews with officers and trainers, the researchers heard comments that hinted at a "lazy cop syndrome." Some officers may turn to a CED too early in an encounter and may rely on a CED rather than on their conflict resolution skills or even on hands-on applications.

      • whycome 38 minutes ago
        > conflict resolution skills or even on hands-on applications.

        Do electric “pain compliance” (their words) gloves count as “hands-on applications”?

    • ThrustVectoring 29 minutes ago
      That's because they are extraordinarily suitable as covert torture devices. When government officials use them to inflict pain, they do not leave physical evidence and the only video evidence from filming the interaction is how long hands were on the detainee.
    • skeledrew 31 minutes ago
      With a little imagination, anything can be misused and abused.
  • battailous-stra 37 minutes ago
    This looks pretty similar to those randomly timed electro-stimulation pads attached to the butt that you sometimes see in furry BDSM circles.
  • donkey_brains 4 minutes ago
    Flagged? This is a story about technology and its effects on society. Get stuffed with this censorship BS.
  • whycome 40 minutes ago
    Ah yes. This was the future they envisioned. Nothing cruel and unusual about this. Because it’s not “punishment” - just incidental assault during the booking process.

    > method to gain control of a subject through pain compliance

  • amazingamazing 45 minutes ago
    I do not see the big deal. I guess some have never encountered paraprofessionals and heard their stories?
  • 01100011 55 minutes ago
    Are these worse than Tasers? I would think a Taser's form factor makes it far more likely to be used.
    • ceejayoz 46 minutes ago
      They're torture devices.

      https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/08/ice-shock-glove...

      > In 2022, Assistant Chief Adam Glueck, of the Cape Girardeau Police Department in southeastern Missouri, purchased electric shock gloves for his officers after learning about them at a trade show. And his employees, he said, couldn’t get enough of them. “If I try to take away the gloves from those officers at this point I think we may have a mutiny on our hands,” Glueck joked on a podcast interview a couple of years later. “They’ve grown really attached.”

      > The shock gloves, he went on to explain, allow their wearer to inflict pain without leaving the sort of marks that could look bad to witnesses or leave an officer vulnerable to lawsuits.

      > “In today’s society, you know, everybody’s filming everything, everybody has a cell phone,” Glueck said. If an officer punches someone on camera, that can go viral in an instant; even a standard taser leaves puncture wounds. But “the glove is low optic, and it looks better on video, and it looks better to those witnesses. With a glove, there are no burn marks or scars.”

      • grim_io 42 minutes ago
        Waterboarding is just a packaging problem.

        Make it portable and convenient and those officers are going to love it.

    • tamimio 51 minutes ago
      Not really, because the whole idea is to have it used in discrete manner, a taser will be obvious and mostly recorded and shared online, plus once used there’s some time needed to reuse it again (the taser gun), those on the other hand, are discrete and can be used on multiple people quickly. The forced military draft will be “fun” to watch in the US!