4 years ago

Schools Looking at Technology to Prevent Future Shootings

After yet another tragic school shooting, schools across the country are looking at technology to prevent shootings in the future. Parents, teachers, school leaders, politicians, and others are debating once again, how to prevent the next school shooting. Some say we need more strict gun control, while others say that restricting guns is not the answer and that we need more guns and should arm teachers. While parties and politicians argue and policy change seems like it will never happen, schools are left to try to come up with their own security measures in the meantime.

Source: CBS New York/Youtube

While many teachers and school staff are trained on what to do in a gunman situation, many argue that this training needs to be more thorough.

“We are throwing billions of dollars at security hardware, access control on doors, single point of entry, cameras, metal detectors in some places,” Kenneth S. Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services, told the Washington Post. “Any security technology is only as good as the weakest human link behind it and we are not focusing on training our people.”

Trump says that technology “only works if it’s properly and consistently implemented.”

According to the Washington Post, Curtis Lavarello, the executive director of the School Safety Advocacy Council, will walk through a vendor hall this summer at a huge school safety conference and won’t be surprised at how useless some of the technology being marketed to schools is. “You’re going to see bizarre things you would never want to see in your child’s school,” said Lavarello.

He told the Washington Post that they don’t help prevent shootings and can even make one worse. He spoke of a system that costs $400,000 and fills the hallways with smoke to stop a shooter. However, this would also obstruct law enforcement and children trying to escape.

Lavarello told said that he was consulting on security at a school that spent over $350,000 on exterior door locks. He told the school that it wouldn’t keep someone out and said he would show them he could get into the school in just five minutes. He went around the building to a locked door, where he knocked and a group of students let him in. “I didn’t look like a threat and they’re nice kids.”

A company called ZeroEyes is working to get officials on the scene faster. The company puts its AI software into the school or business’ security cameras. When someone pulls a gun in front of the camera, an alert is sent to the company, which verifies if it’s real and then notifies the client and police, which happens within just three to five seconds.

Source: ZeroEyes/Youtube

Other companies, like LodeStar Works, are trying to create a market for smart guns. The Pennsylvania-based manufacturer uses fingerprints or a phone app to allow access to a 9-millimeter handgun they have been developing.

Critical Event Response Applications (CERA) has created a software application that they hope can change the way that police, fire departments, and EMS respond to mass casualty events. CERA helps cut down response time, and they link together first responders, students, and staff through cellphones within seconds. People can report live about the suspect and the suspect’s location in real-time.

“The reporting that’s coming in, live reporting , with that intelligence, this is where that suspect is, is basically creating a path of that suspect. We can even track the direction of travel,” said Ed McGovern, CEO of CERA.

Many say that simple measures like locked doors and fences around the school perimeter could be much more helpful in stopping intruders. Schools are looking at improving communication tools by giving handheld radios to school personnel to exchange information more quickly.

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