Mother says security guard choked son at MacGregor Elementary, seeks video

A Houston mother says her 8-year-old son screamed near MacGregor Elementary’s front entrance after a security guard put a hand around his neck, and she is pressing Houston ISD to release the surveillance video and explain what happened.

Rebecca Briscoe said she was walking to pick up her second-grade son on May 22 when she heard him screaming outside the Museum District campus at 4801 La Branch St. She said the sound immediately told her this was not an ordinary child having a bad moment. Briscoe later said her son told her, in substance, that he could not breathe and that the school resource officer or guard had choked him. She said the boy was sitting by himself on a bench when the incident happened.

Briscoe said she and the child’s father later reviewed the footage with the principal and believed it showed the guard approaching the child and placing a hand around his neck. Jet Security LLC, the contractor that employs the guard, said school officials told them the cameras did not back up the mother’s account. That dispute now sits at the center of the case: the family says the video supports the allegation, while the security company says it does not.

Houston ISD said district police investigated and sent their findings to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office. Prosecutors declined to file charges, saying there was not enough reliable evidence at this time, though they said the case could be reopened if new evidence emerges. The district has said its safety model is layered, with campus officers, patrol officers, criminal investigators, emergency management staff and behavioral support teams operating across more than 300 square miles of district property.

The fight over the video also touches a broader issue for parents in Texas schools: access to surveillance footage. Districts often let families view video with administrators but not receive a copy, in part because of privacy rules tied to other students and federal education records law. HISD also operates a School Safety and Security Committee, which Texas Education Code Section 37.109 requires every district to establish.

MacGregor Elementary, which opened in 1922 as Southmore Elementary School and was renamed in 1930 for Henry F. MacGregor, serves students in prekindergarten through fifth grade and houses a magnet program in music and fine arts. Regina Johnson is listed as the principal. For Briscoe, the unresolved video record now carries a larger question for the district: whether parents can trust that young children are safe, and that complaints involving force are reviewed independently and transparently.