AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTYou have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.We look at an extraordinary investigation into police officers in Texas schools.Listen · 10:56 min In Corpus Christi, Texas.Credit...Meridith Kohut for The New York TimesMay 28, 2026, 6:59 a.m. ETAt a school near Houston, a police officer used a cord to hogtie a 10-year-old boy with a behavioral disorder who had kicked the principal.At a school in San Antonio, an officer handcuffed a 6-year-old boy who had kicked a school employee.Near a school in Galveston, an officer chased down a 17-year-old who ran off campus after he was caught with a vape, then pointed her gun and threatened to shoot him.In the four years since a gunman killed 19 children and two adults at an elementary school in Uvalde, school districts in Texas have spent billions of dollars to put police officers on every school campus in the state. This outlay is meant to protect students from similar attacks. And our reporters spoke with dozens of parents, teachers, principals and students who said they believed in it. School police officers stop violent fights. They confiscate weapons. And they’re a balm against a parent’s greatest fear: school shootings.“Just look at the TV,” a third-grade math teacher in Dallas told The Times. “There’s no school in America that should not have some kind of officer.”But the flood of Texas school police officers — about 11,000 have been trained, more than the total number of police officers in many states — has not always made public schools safer. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT