SAN ANTONIO — The number of school shootings has risen substantially in the past 10 years. A new program using AI and existing security cameras in schools aims to bring those numbers back down.
The AI platform is called ZeroEyes. It's a proactive gun detection and response system using existing security cameras.
The makers of the platform say that while gun control and mental health are being debated and have been for years, they believe they have a solution right now.
"We are literally detecting guns right now, every single week," said Sam Alaimo, cofounder of ZeroEyes. "We're trying to address the problem as best we can right now with the with the technology we have."
With ZeroEyes, once a gun is exposed in front of a camera, the platform picks it up. Alerts then go to the ZeroEyes operating center, where law enforcement will confirm if it's a real weapon and threat before dispatching an alert to the user.
In this case, that's the school.
"So if there's a gun in the parking lot, within three to five seconds, if you're the school, you will have your hands on an alert with a picture of the shooter, the location and the time," said Alaimo.
ZeroEyes says about six out of every 10 teenagers are worried about a shooting at their school. Just over six out of every 10 parents, meanwhile, are concerned about a shooting happening at their child's school. And 70% of the American Federation of Teachers say the threat of gun violence affects learning.
Corpus Christi ISD officials say the program have saved valuable resources multiple times by helping to detect swatting.
"Someone had swatted us. Well, ZeroEyes saw that," said Kirby Warnke, chief of the Corpus Christi Police Department.
The technology and a human at the operations center looked into the call and determined there was no reason to send out an alert.
"But they saw that law enforcement was already present," Warnke added. "So they did not have to send us."
He says CCISD uses the platform in addition to established school security practices.
"It's not like a police officer walking in the hall," Warnke added. "You can see the police officer there, right there. ZeroEyes works in the ether, so it's kind of behind the scenes, basically having our back."
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