New data showing Black students bore brunt of CCSD police force sparks lawmaker concern

New data showing Black students bore brunt of CCSD police force sparks lawmaker concern

Monday, Sept. 14, 2026 | 2 a.m.

Editor's note: Este artículo está traducido al español.

Clark County School District Police officers used pepper spray 10 times and electronic stun devices once last school year, with most of the people affected by these uses of force being Black, according to data recently made readily available under a new state law.

The 11 total uses of force affected 21 people and occurred around the district, mostly at high schools.

Black people accounted for 18 of the 21 people affected, while two were Hispanic and one was white; 12 of those affected were minors, according to the data.

“What’s really concerning is an extraordinary racial disparity and who is being subject to the use of force, specifically the chemical agents, and how these chemical agents can continue to impact children and students and staff that had nothing to do with it and were just in the vicinity,” said Assemblymember Cecelia González, the Las Vegas Democrat who sponsored the 2025 bill that required school police to make the data easily available to the public.

The report is posted to the CCSDPD webpage.

Assembly Bill 420 requires school districts with their own police departments — CCSD and Washoe County School District — to post annual use-of-force incidents involving chemical agents such as pepper spray, electronic stun devices such as stun guns, and batons. The data is broken down by location, whether it was on district property, whether it happened during school hours or a school activity` and, for CCSDPD, the rank and length of employment of the officers involved. The first and so far only set of data covers 2025-26.

Seven of the 11 incidents happened on high school campuses during school hours or at school events, district data show: Two were at Cheyenne High School, and one each at Liberty, Green Valley, Rancho, Chaparral and Desert Pines high schools. In each of those seven incidents, the district reported officers’ use of pepper spray; none included an electronic stun device or baton.

CCSD said through a district spokesperson to “use caution in drawing conclusions from a relatively small data set of 11 use-of-force incidents.”

“That being said, CCSD has been very transparent about our work to train officers and staff members to provide interventions for all students before behavior escalates, as well as to recognize biases when working with students,” the district said.

The nonprofit Make the Road Nevada, which advocates for immigrant and working-class communities, partnered with González on AB 420. In a statement, the organization said the data reflected what it had heard for years: “There are significant concerns that need to be addressed regarding how our youth, especially Black youth, experience interactions with law enforcement.”

“This data highlights the importance of our commitment to addressing this issue. We believe that young people deserve to feel safe, respected, heard, and treated fairly in every interaction with those responsible for their protection,” Make the Road Nevada Deputy Director Blanca Macias said in the statement. “Make the Road Nevada applauds the CCSD students who have shared their stories and voiced their concerns. Thank you to Assemblymember Cecelia González for your leadership on this issue, while incorporating youth in the process.”

The police data also includes race, gender and age ranges, although the demographic information is aggregated and not integrated into the incident breakdowns — meaning, for example, that it doesn’t show the race, age or gender of people involved in any given incident, or the ages of people involved by race or gender.

CCSD says its officers evaluate every situation based “strictly on behavior, threat level and the immediate need to maintain safety or prevent harm, regardless of race or background.” It says officers prioritize verbal de-escalation, conflict resolution and trauma-informed intervention tactics, and that it works with other district departments on social-emotional support to address behavior before it escalates. The district also says it performs “robust” reviews and internal audits of use-of-force incidents.

The district statement credited supports and interventions for an 8% decrease last year in student disciplinary events and a 9.6% drop in major or severe infractions. Those include a 17% drop in fighting and a 29% decrease in weapons-related offenses.

The district shared more general data showing that in 2024-25, CCSDPD had eight pepper spray incidents and one stun device incident. There were no baton uses that year, either.

González said she couldn’t draw conclusions about individual officers based solely on last year’s data, but she said she doesn’t want to dismiss the prevalence of Black people’s involvement and that she needs to understand why the disparity exists.

“Black students deserve to walk into school knowing that they’re going to be treated with the same dignity, care and respect as every other child,” she said. “And as of this moment, the data is not showing that.”

She said she hoped to meet with school police officials for follow-up conversation.