“Here we are today. Back at this bridge. When I was a little girl, Dr. King said to us, ‘Children, when I ask you, what do you want, I want you to say freedom.’ And here we are, 61 years later.” 70-year-old Sheyann Webb-Christburg fears progress is being undone in Alabama as the state’s Republican-led Legislature races to redraw the state’s voting map before the midterm elections. Last month, the Supreme Court struck down a key Voting Rights Act protection for minority voters. Now, the extent of that ruling is being tested. After a federal court ruled that the state’s redrawn map discriminates against Black people, Alabama has appealed to the Supreme Court to allow the state to use it. Sheyann says the effort reignites memories of a darker past. “Many people, if they registered to vote back in the 60s, their lives was threatened.” At 8 years old, she witnessed it firsthand. “What happened here on Bloody Sunday?” “As we made our way across this bridge, I’ll never forget seeing the policemen with tear gas. People had begun to be beaten, just trampling over people as if they weren’t human beings. And the picture of Bloody Sunday has never left my heart.” Since the Supreme Court ruling, Republican leaders have moved quickly to break up majority Black districts across the South, including here in Alabama. These two Democratic districts were created to allow Black voters the opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice. But with five months before the midterms, conservatives across the South argue race should not be a factor in the creation of voter districts. “You cannot say that we are all created equal, and that states must treat everyone equal under the law, and then allow a law to sort people based upon race.” “I’m looking forward to the day when Alabama gets a 7-0 congressional representation. It’s consistent with who we are as a very conservative state.” “A reminder that justice matters. Truth matters. Democracy matters because biblical justice protects those who are vulnerable.” In Montgomery, a history of disenfranchisement leaves Alabama’s heavily Democratic Black population fearing their district and their voices will be erased. “Not happy with what’s being done in the statehouse.” “Yeah.” “I feel like I’ve reached the top of the stairs and someone just — and pushed me.” “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” “And pushed my children.” “What would losing representation mean to people in this district?” “There are people who don’t have running water and who have live sewage in their front yards. And it was not until representation was present that those neighbors were actually able to be served. If you have no one at the table who is representing your interest and who is concerned about you, then you know that you will not be represented in the result.” Beyond representation, activists like Anneshia Hardy worry this redistricting battle will cause voters to lose faith in the democratic process. “Folks are like, ‘Are elections still happening? Will it even matter if we go and vote?’ So when you cause that type of confusion, oftentimes it results in disengagement. And that does not just hurt Black folks. That hurts us all.” Crowd: “We’re not going back.” The New York Times reached out to Alabama’s Republican leadership, but they did not acknowledge our interview requests. “Ain’t no power like the power of the people cause the power of the people don’t stop.” It remains unclear which maps will be used in the midterm elections. Until then, advocates are organizing rallies to register their protest. “As a Black woman in this country, just about every right that I have is some type of law that can be overturned. And in my lifetime, I’m actively watching those efforts happen. Even as they dilute the power, we need folks to go and vote. We need folks to continue to show up even more.” In silent defiance, Sheyann marched in Selma again. “Much blood, sweat, and tears were shed in an effort for African Americans to gain their right to vote. We got to fight for them. Even though they are no longer with us, in my mind, they are counting on us.”

A former CIA official was arrested last week after FBI agents allegedly found $40 million worth of gold bars at his home while investigating whether he lied about his educational and military background, according to court records and sources familiar with the matter.

David Rush is currently being held in jail while both his defense attorneys and federal prosecutors “gather and evaluate additional information” to assist the court in determining whether he should remain detained, court filings say. They have jointly requested to postpone his detention hearing until June 5 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

In a joint statement from the FBI and CIA, both agencies said that Rush was arrested following a referral from the CIA, after an internal investigation identified “potential violations of law.”

The CIA and FBI added they are continuing to investigate the matter.

Jessica Carmichael, a defense attorney representing Rush, declined to comment.

Rush was charged with one count of stealing public money. In an unusual criminal complaint, the FBI accuses Rush of taking the gold bars, “obtaining a fraudulently inflated salary and fraudulently obtaining military leave” and making a litany of false statements about his background. The complaint does not specify exactly what alleged conduct led to the charges.

Between November 2025 and March of this year, Rush allegedly made several requests to the government to obtain large amounts of foreign currency and tens of millions of dollars in gold bars for work-related expenses, the complaint says.

Rush’s employer at the time, which sources confirmed was the CIA, was not able to later locate the gold bars or determine their intended use.

When FBI agents searched his home on May 18, they found approximately 303 gold bars, in a value estimated to exceed $40 million, the complaint says. They also recovered $2 million in U.S. currency and 35 luxury watches.

The FBI also accused Rush of lying to the U.S. Navy when he enlisted in 1997 by providing them with transcripts and other records falsely indicating he had earned an undergraduate degree from Clemson University. Because of his ostensible degree, Rush was commissioned as an ensign in the U.S. Navy Reserves in 2004 and was honorably discharged in 2015.

The complaint says he then applied for employment with the federal government three times, citing degrees from Clemson University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the Naval Postgraduate School. He also listed those schools when he applied for his security clearance.

Later, in 2018, he submitted an application to enter senior executive service and claimed to be a graduate of the United States Air Force Test Pilot School, as well as the current director of test for a 145-person, 18-aircraft joint Army/Navy weapons test organization, the complaint says.

“The FBI’s investigation has revealed that Rush’s applications contained false information about his education background and work with the United States military,” the sworn statement accompanying the complaint says, noting that he did not graduate from Clemson or RPI, and never served as a pilot for the Navy.

The FBI also accused Rush of telling the government he was in the Navy Reserves even though he had been honorably discharged, allowing him to claim tens of thousands of dollars in compensation for military leave.

Since the massacre at Robb Elementary in Uvalde in 2022, school districts across Texas have spent billions of dollars to station police officers on every campus in the state. The effort, the most ambitious in the nation, was intended to protect students from similar tragedies.

But 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.

There is no comprehensive record of use-of-force incidents across the more than 1,000 public school districts in Texas. Many districts and police agencies declined to disclose their data to our journalists; others did not respond to public records requests. More than 200 provided some information, but in most cases, it was limited.

Still, by examining even that small share of records, our reporters identified more than 2,600 use-of-force incidents that occurred from January 2022 through December 2025. About 450 of those interactions were described in detailed reports, which we reviewed. We also watched video footage from over two dozen encounters.

The records provide a first-of-its-kind look at how Texas’ initiative around school policing has played out in districts large and small, urban and rural.

Many incidents began over misbehavior such as dress-code violations, vaping or schoolyard scraps. Officers, often summoned by principals or teachers, escalated some situations by shouting obscenities or insults. They used physical takedown tactics in about 60 situations when students ignored their commands, talked back or pulled away.

In the Judson school district, which includes parts of San Antonio, an officer slammed a 15-year-old boy onto a table after he threw a cheese stick at another student, according to witnesses cited in public records. In a statement, the school district said that the student had tried to walk away from the officer, who used “necessary force to gain control of the situation.”

In the Cypress-Fairbanks district, near Houston, an officer hogtied a 10-year-old boy with a behavioral disorder who had kicked the principal, using a cord to bind his hands and feet behind his back, an internal investigation found. The officer had twice before used the same restraint technique, when the boy left campus during school, the records show. The district later banned the practice.

Tayshawn Chadwick, 17, was suspended from his school in the Aldine district for threatening to fight another student in December 2023. When he tried to retrieve his house keys from a classroom before leaving campus, a school officer pinned him against a window, according to records. Another officer pressed a Taser against his skin and shocked him repeatedly.

“It felt like a lightning bolt,” Tayshawn recalled in an interview.

Tayshawn was charged with resisting arrest and held in the county jail. The charge was dismissed after he completed an anger-management program. The school district declined to comment on the incident; records show that the officers’ supervisors deemed their actions in compliance with department policy.

In interviews, dozens of parents, teachers, principals and students said that they believed police officers were needed to keep schools safe. Many praised officers for stopping violent fights. Almost everyone cited fear of school shootings. As recently as March, a student at a high school in the San Antonio area shot a teacher and then killed himself. School officers have confiscated dozens of guns in that region alone, and some have thwarted potential attacks.

“Just look at the TV,” said LaTres Essien, who teaches third-grade math in Dallas. “There’s no school in America that should not have some kind of officer.”

Police chiefs said physical force was necessary in police work, even at schools. “We can’t be lackadaisical and say, ‘Well, we’re in a school, and maybe we shouldn’t go hands on with this student,’ and then it rises to a level that he or she does hurt someone,” said Charles Carnes, who in December retired as chief of the Northside school district’s department in San Antonio.

Some departments disciplined officers for going too far, including in the hogtie incident and the pepper-spray and vape cases shown in the videos above. (Neither the officer involved in the lunchroom brawl case nor his department provided comment.)

But 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.

School boards and police agencies are responsible for oversight, state officials said. But in interviews, two dozen board members from across Texas said they did not consider that part of their job. “We just approve what they need to buy,” said Michael Valdez, a board member in the Edgewood school district in San Antonio.

Several said they were unaware that their officers used force on students at all.

A review of use-of-force policies from more than 200 school district police departments found that many were largely copied from those used by municipal police agencies. Some addressed how to handle livestock and animal control calls. Most provided no specific guidance on handling students.

‘Eyes Wide Open’

Police officers have been assigned to some schools in Texas for nearly a century. In the 1930s, newspaper articles show, the Houston Police Department employed part-time “school policemen” to help direct traffic.

But it was not until the 1980s and ’90s, amid concerns about drugs and violence, that the ranks of school officers began to swell. The 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado led to a larger rise.

Elsewhere in the country, school districts typically tapped the local sheriff’s office or police department for officers. Texas was unusual in that many districts formed their own departments instead.

As police presence in schools grew, some educators became wary of harsh punishment and practices that could push students into the criminal justice system. Even in law-and-order Texas, concerns seemed to break through. In 2019, the Legislature passed a law saying that school boards should not task officers with routine student discipline.

Then came Uvalde, the deadliest school shooting in Texas history, which claimed the lives of 19 students and two teachers.

A year later, in 2023, lawmakers passed legislation to require at least one licensed police officer at each of the state’s public schools. While other states had taken steps to increase school security, few relied as heavily on the police.

Before the Texas law was adopted, some parents, teachers and advocates warned that it would lead to more arrests and incidents involving force. Alycia Castillo, the associate director of policy and advocacy for the Texas Civil Rights Project, a nonprofit based in Austin, said that several groups had already raised concerns about heavy-handed police tactics in schools. Lawmakers, she said in an interview, had their “eyes wide open.”

In the two years that followed, statewide annual spending on school security rose to more than $1.3 billion from about $900 million.

Today, Texas is home to nearly 400 school district police departments, more than all other states combined. Most of the remaining districts have contracts with outside police agencies. The number of officers trained to work in schools — about 11,000 — exceeds the total number of police officers in at least two dozen states.

Most of what school officers do is mundane. They secure external doors, usher students through metal detectors and monitor hallways for fights. Some mentor students and offer advice.

But routine interactions have been punctuated at times by physical encounters. Officers grabbed or tackled students hundreds of times, data and records show. They used pepper spray in dozens of cases and shocked students with Tasers in at least nine incidents. On four occasions, reporters found, officers held teenagers at gunpoint.

Some large school districts reported using force more than 100 times in a school year. In an interview, Kirby Warnke, the chief of the Corpus Christi school district police department, said that his officers got physical with students “almost every day,” often to restrain or redirect them.

Students were left with bruises, scrapes or other injuries in nearly a quarter of the 450 cases reviewed by reporters. Two teenagers suffered concussions, according to medical records and an interview with one family’s lawyer.

About two dozen of the overall cases involved children in elementary school. In the Northside school district, an officer handcuffed a 6-year-old boy who kicked a school employee during a tantrum.

State law prohibits using restraints on children in fifth grade or below in all but the most dangerous situations. In a statement, the district said that the officer had perceived an “immediate risk of harm.”

The boy was still in cuffs when his father arrived a few minutes later and began filming on his cellphone.

“The police wants me to die!” the child cried.

‘The Heavy Hand’

In May 2024, Anabelle Jaramillo rang a plastic doorbell outside a classroom at Texas City High School. The $13 bell came off and Anabelle walked away with it, according to a description of surveillance footage included in a police report.

The next day, administrators accused the 17-year-old honor student of theft and assigned her three days of in-school suspension.

Certain there had been a misunderstanding, Anabelle showed up at the office of Sonia Davis, an assistant principal. She told Ms. Davis that she had accidentally dislodged the doorbell and tucked it into a nearby planter so that she would not get in trouble, she recalled in an interview.

Still, Ms. Davis summoned the Galveston County sheriff’s deputies at the school and, body camera footage shows, asked them to speak with Anabelle about theft.

Anabelle continued to plead her case. She texted her mother, and Ms. Davis extended her suspension by two days for using a cellphone in the office. Ms. Davis told Anabelle to leave. But the teenager would not budge from her seat.

Anabelle gasped for air for about three minutes before going still, body camera footage shows. Ms. Davis called for the school nurse. Deputy Ruiz took her pulse. Anabelle later told reporters that she had passed out.

Other cases reviewed by reporters similarly escalated.

A staff member called for an officer when a 17-year-old in a special education class threatened a classmate and threw a “sanitizer can” at the student, the police report said; the officer dragged the boy to the ground and, after a scuffle, punched him in the face twice, video footage shows.

A teacher alerted an officer to a 15-year-old who was swearing in a hallway; the officer took the student down, records show, and dragged him into a room by his leg.

In interviews, educators said that they sometimes needed help managing unruly students. Many feel pressure to be tough on misbehavior, said Anita Wadhwa, a former teacher who now runs a nonprofit in Houston focused on alternative approaches to school discipline.

“No adult wants to look like a kid is talking back to them,” she said.

Some school district leaders said that they had sent a clear message: Officers should get involved only if a student is accused of a serious crime or if someone is at risk of physical harm.

“Our officers are not disciplinarians, period,” said Sean Maika, who was the superintendent of the North East Independent School District in San Antonio until January.

But in many places, that message seems to have gotten lost. Michelle Parsons, who teaches a training course required for school officers in Texas, said that officers frequently described being pulled into minor disciplinary matters. At a recent training attended by a reporter, officers were told to stay out of incidents that would not otherwise prompt a 911 call. Several scoffed and said their principals would be unhappy.

Mrs. Parsons said that principals and teachers often see officers as “the heavy hand.” Texas does not require them to be trained on when to call school police.

Shortly after Anabelle’s arrest, her mother, Martha Jaramillo, arrived at the school to find her on the ground, footage shows. “She was very rude to us,” Ms. Davis, the assistant principal, told Mrs. Jaramillo.

Mrs. Jaramillo told the nurse about her daughter’s health conditions, including asthma. One of the deputies called for paramedics, who took the teenager to an emergency room.

Two weeks later, Anabelle turned herself in at the county jail for the theft charge. There, she said, she had another panic attack.

Neither Ms. Davis nor Texas City school district officials agreed to be interviewed for this article. In a statement, the district said Ms. Davis had not violated its policies. The Galveston County Sheriff’s Office declined to comment. The deputies involved in the case did not respond to multiple efforts to reach them.

Kim Simon, a national expert on school policing and a former officer from Virginia who reviewed the case for The Times and The Express-News, said that Ms. Davis and the officers had escalated a minor offense unnecessarily.

“Nobody was acting in the best interest of a child,” Ms. Simon said.

Command and Control

Across the state, officers directed obscenities, insults and threats at students just before or after using physical force, records and video footage show.

“Stop crying like a little girl,” a school police officer in San Antonio ordered a seventh-grade boy who had gotten in trouble for being disruptive.

“Boy, I will hurt you,” an officer in Houston told a high school student who talked back to him.

“Get your fucking hands up before I shoot you!” an officer in Galveston shouted while pointing her gun at a 17-year-old she had cornered in a yard. The teen had run off campus after he was caught with a vape.

Most officers employed by a Texas school district previously worked for municipal police agencies, an analysis of police certification data found. More than 1,000 worked as jailers.

In those roles, officers are encouraged to have a commanding presence in order to take control of dangerous situations.

“The notion of policing requires force,” said Aaron Kupchik, a professor of sociology and criminal justice at the University of Delaware, who writes about school policing. “It requires that you compel people to obey your authority.”

But dealing with young people, he and other law enforcement experts said, calls for a different approach. Research shows that adolescents, whose brains have not yet fully developed, often have difficulty with impulse control. Yelling at or physically dominating them, the experts added, can backfire.

In Texas, the state-mandated training for school police officers includes instruction in child psychology, conflict resolution and managing students with behavioral issues. But at only 20 hours, the program is half the minimum recommended by the National Association of School Resource Officers. Kentucky, which also mandates officers at all public schools, requires 120 hours.

When officers used force on students, department leaders almost always had the final say on whether they acted within bounds or overstepped.

Supervisors often reviewed forms describing the incidents, and they noted on some whether they approved of the officers’ actions. Reporters examined more than 100 such documents, finding that supervisors almost always determined that the force had been appropriate.

In some other cases reviewed by reporters, officers were disciplined, but received little more than verbal warnings or orders to get additional training.

In 2024, Officer Linda Holland used pepper spray to stop a group of girls from fighting and then kneed one of the girls in the face, video footage shows. She was required to complete four training courses, including one on ethics, according to an internal report. A supervisor wrote that her actions were “not a good look.”

Officer Holland hung up when a reporter called for comment. In a statement, the district described the scene as “chaotic,” adding that the officer did not intend to hurt the girl.

Some parents, records show, took concerns about officers to the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, which licenses all of the state’s police officers. But the commission says it cannot investigate excessive force complaints unless the officer was criminally charged.

In at least two cases, when parents have filed federal lawsuits against officers over use of force, the appellate court that covers Texas ruled against their claims. In 2023, the court ruled in favor of an officer who used a Taser on a 17-year-old boy with an intellectual disability when he tried to leave school. The court said that the officer’s actions were akin to corporal punishment, which is legal in Texas.

Alienated and withdrawn

Some students who were subject to physical force from police officers said that they had suffered lingering consequences.

Tayshawn Chadwick, who was stunned with a Taser, said he stopped leaving the house. Julian Montes, who was slammed into a lunch cart, is now afraid of police officers.

Anabelle Jaramillo said the doorbell incident led her to become withdrawn from even close friends.

Prosecutors dismissed the theft charge after she completed an online course about stealing. But she was mortified when a crime website posted her mug shot. She finished her classes from home and skipped her graduation ceremony.

Two years later, Anabelle has finally begun to put the trauma behind her. She gave birth to a son and completed community college. She plans to attend a nearby university in the fall in hopes of becoming a veterinarian. But the police episode has made her less trusting. The adults at her high school, she said, had failed her.

“I thought they’re there to hear you out, to build you up and get you into the future,” she said. Instead, “They broke me down.”

Justin Mayo, Melissa Manno, Liz Teitz, Maggie Allwein and Teresa Mondría Terol contributed reporting. Susan C. Beachy, Kitty Bennett, Alain Delaquérière, Georgia Gee, Sheelagh McNeill and Kirsten Noyes contributed research. Produced by Nico Chilla, Jerry Vienna and Rumsey Taylor. This article was reported in partnership with Big Local News at Stanford University.