One Monday afternoon in October 2023, a Cy-Fair ISD police officer tracked down a fifth-grader who had run away from his school for students with behavioral challenges. The boy had left campus before. But this time when he wouldn’t get in the police car, the officer took an unusual step. He cuffed the boy’s hands, shackled his ankles and bound them together behind his back using a controversial technique known as a “hogtie,” according to internal district records obtained by The Houston Chronicle and The New York Times. Then, the officer left the boy face-down in the backseat of his car for nearly 20 minutes. The hogtie technique has been linked to breathing-related deaths, and many city police departments across the country have banned it.