Electric shock gloves in use by police departments in Bellevue, Omaha
nebraskapublicmedia.org> In one case at a high school, the officer used a glove on a student for "noncompliance." In the other, Cvitanov said, the gloves were used on a student who "was trying to get into the school that shouldn't have been there."
Horrifying life-or-death examples here. I totally understand the use of $1500 shock devices on schoolchildren now, looks like the lives of these officers were on the line and they were forced to use them as a last-ditch effort.
I'm looking forward to the rollout of shock collars for automated dispensing of justice on these evil monsters, such as kids who say 'no' or try to get into their school when the officer doesn't want them to. Wouldn't want the cops to put themselves in danger by approaching these future violent criminals.
Remember - these examples were probably selected as the best at showing why these gloves are so necessary. They're putting their best foot forward here.
Ghandi said you can judge a society by how it treats animals.
And to that we can add "and it's schoolchildren."
Gandhi*
Compliant Technologies Glove 4&5 User Manual https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cQ176YYgNl3VXCgLX0ScoihsfXy...
“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.
What would happen if someone was to wear clothing with extremely low resistance wires in them? Because that would likely cause rapid heating in the glove, probably causing it to catch on fire by itself, or if especially badly designed, which these probably are, set off a lithium fire in the battery (2000+ degrees, can't be extinguished with water, in fact, really bad idea to try that).
Does clothing with, say, silver wire woven into it exist? I bet people make that. Wear an antistatic vest with a silver wire pullover and I bet that glove will decide to disable itself, or worse.
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.
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.”
From afar the US is really sounding quite scary lately
This is nothing new for US
Look up Guantanamo Bay and Abu Gharib
But the fact that your first association for devices now used on children in the US is Guantanamo Bay is at least newer, right?
From anear, too.
People get what they voted for.
To be fair, some of the democratic options were fairly rubbish too (from a non-US person/perspective). I'd still have preferred you didn't pick a president that'd make my commute more expensive, and drive power/influence/money further to China/Middle East however...
Unfortunately I think the US has lost the ability to vote for a moderate/centre person or party...so it's looking pretty grim.
How much more "moderate/centrist" could the Democratic candidates be? Id'd strongly argue the issue is exactly that the US only gets to choose between a center-right and a far-right candidate.
The polls have been pretty divisive and relatively narrow, haven't they? A tyranny of the simple majority.
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.
I suspect many more have realized that unless they live in one of a half dozen or so states, their vote for Presidential (or even Senate) candidates is unlikely to affect the outcome.
For example, the state I live in (Kansas) has chosen the Republican candidate in every election in my lifetime, and in only one election has it been by a margin of less than 13% -- due to Ross Perot being a spoiler in 1992, where he took 27% of the state's vote.
My vote for President doesn't really matter, no matter which candidate I care to support, because I already know the outcome in my state. As such, back in the days when Presidential candidates both seemed to have the country's best interests at heart, even if I disagreed with one or both candidates' policies to do so, I generally didn't bother.
The amount of effort non-voters put into justifying not voting is exhausting.
People died so you could vote.
You know how people put up rainbow flags so that others know they have support in the community? Your non-voting, that is the opposite, and you are telling others to feel exactly how your post feeling, doomer, can't change things, and other bs because the community only votes for shit. Your rationalizing does do damage. Put up a rainbow flag, add another vote not in line. Show people they aren't alone.
Even with the US electoral system working against you, there is still aspects of game theory here. What if eventually, with young people displacing the old, the group of people who would vote with you but look at the statistics and decide against it reach a critical mass that would guarantee a win for your party if they all just went out to vote? I'm sure there are millions of people who think just like you.
Voting isn't an arduous task and it occurs pretty rarely, so even if you don't think your side would win this time, why not just go do it anyway? Older people don't care about the voting record, they'll go out to vote rain or shine. Why can't we be more like them?
Trump lost the popular vote in 2016. He became president because of the electoral college. He did win the popular vote in 2024, though. Both elections were by narrow margins.
That's meant to sound like hard reality, but it is just glib. Poll results show that progressive issues are popular, but don't get enacted in law because we are more of an oligarchy than a democracy.
Calling the US an oligarchy sounds dire, even extreme, but how else do you account for the divergence of issue popularity versus legislative performance? Even with elections, we are ruled by men with money, not the will of the people.
Yeah, the militarization of police and violation of rights never happened under the “opposition” party.
You're right. Both parties are exactly the same. Best not to vote at all in protest.
How compatible are these with a super soaker filled with saline? Asking for a friend.
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?
Sounds pretty cheap to me for such a niche product. How many electric glove suppliers (and buyers) do you think there are?
Feel free to recreate and calibrate and guarantee safe shock levels to offer it cheaper if that fits your morals
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.
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.
I have bad news about what is considered non lethal. They sell non lethal tank rounds, for instance.
These systems are called less than lethal.
Just "less lethal" is the current industry term, since it's acknowledged that these weapons are still capable of killing.
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.
All covered in the article. Touching face, chest, groin, etc is forbidden. And the shock is local to the touched area (unlike tasers).
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...
> Touching face, chest, groin, etc is forbidden.
Sure, just like beating a suspect is.
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.
This whole subthread (where I never meant safe as "unable to cause any sort of harm to any organism under any circumstance") feels moot. In general though, there's a reason virtually all countries heavily restrict access to weapons. A law enforcement officer who doesn't carry weapons (lethal or otherwise) will have a harder time killing someone by accident, so the person above you brings up a valid concern. The question whether the concern should lead to the gloves being banned is about proportionality, and I'm not sure we can get to a useful conclusion of that pros-and-cons discussion in an HN comment under the size limit
> 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.
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.
Kid's toys beg to differ. The question is whether it's effective at safe electricity levels. I was just pointing out that safety is an aspect you'll need to certify before anyone's gonna buy it off of you. And whether you fake your certification or not, of course there's no guarantee that it can't still inflict damage to a person under any circumstance
I didn't mean it as an absolutism; safety is never an absolutism. Driving a car is considered safe, too
Main question is how many pairs you will ever sell.
Explaining it in terms of software. How much would you charge per copy for software that takes team of 10 to run as business if you sell only say 10 copies, or 100, or even 1000? Quite a lot per copy.
Do these really need to be sold as pairs? I suspect one GLOVE would be adequate?
Just add “tactical” to any product you make and you can charge 40% extra.
A “tactical wedding” is an absolute goldmine.
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.
> 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.
> conflict resolution skills or even on hands-on applications.
Do electric “pain compliance” (their words) gloves count as “hands-on applications”?
Tasers also unfortunately fail a ton, and generally the cops only escalate so once the taser fails the gun shots start.
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.
Couldn’t put my finger on it, that’s what it is. Unlike a baton or pepper spray, this leaves no marks and has no distinct visual signature when being used. I bet these (or more likely AliExpress knockoffs) become really popular with club bouncers.
I wonder if the device logs each activation like a Taser does?
This isn't a new problem, and pain compliance isn't a new solution. Abuse is rampant and amounts to torture.
With a little imagination, anything can be misused and abused.
The Legend of Korra come to life
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.
That's already common practice in police (and military) training. (For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcVQ_k6d9J0)
It's a little different when it's your buddies testing them out versus torturing a suspect.
This looks pretty similar to those randomly timed electro-stimulation pads attached to the butt that you sometimes see in furry BDSM circles.
The highest intensity TENS kit used in BDSM won't feel worse than a harsh elastic band snap, and most units produce way less than that.
These gloves are substantially more powerful, so will feel more like being whipped or caned - unbearably intense sharp, stinging pain.
Flagged? This is a story about technology and its effects on society. Get stuffed with this censorship BS.
Censorship BS? This is being discussed in every social forum in the country. Divisive topics == divisive attitudes, and in exchange for peace some of us are fine with not talking about some shit in some places.
Dang and team are walking a fine line - telling them to get stuffed is inappropriate and illustrative of why this is a problem in the first place.
edit: Ohhhhhhh the /u is donkey_brains; did I take the troll bait? jfc I hate this timeline
Oh yes, this is totally off topic, let’s just keep talking about the same LLM subjects over and over and over and over again.
If time travel gets invented it's going to be on every social forum in the country, which would be grounds to not talk about it on HN I guess?
Authoritarian police state high tech cyberpunk torture devices seem about as 'hack news'ie as something can get.
I haven't seen it anywhere else. I was on Reddit before I came to HN this morning.
Fair. My anxiety is my own thing, and shouldn’t be projected onto everyone; at the same time, “get stuffed” just set me off.
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
Are these worse than Tasers? I would think a Taser's form factor makes it far more likely to be used.
Yes, because they normalize the escalation to violence/to torture for coercion over de-escalation/actual policing while removing the optics issue of visibly using direct violence/torture on random citizens when using a Taser.
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.”
Waterboarding is just a packaging problem.
Make it portable and convenient and those officers are going to love it.
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!
I do not see the big deal. I guess some have never encountered paraprofessionals and heard their stories?