FRANKLIN COUNTY, Va. – School board members are discussing the use of artificial intelligence to detect guns on school grounds.
Superintendent Dr. Kevin Siers said the board has been exploring options, including software from Zero Eyes that uses existing security cameras and AI to identify firearms and alert an incident center within seconds.
“We take safety and security very serious,” Siers said. “So that caused us to take a deeper look into what options are available for weapons detection.”
Dustin Brooks, a co-founder of Zero Eyes, said the system is designed to be proactive and to prompt an immediate response. He described a process in which a camera detects a gun, an operations center verifies the alert, and then dispatches notifications to the school and local authorities.
“From detection — gun brandished in front of camera, camera picks up gun, operation center verifies alert, dispatch alert, customer receives alert — that process can be, you know, as fast as three to five seconds,” Brooks said.
Brooks said human analysts review any images the AI flags, which he said reduces false alarms. He added that the system is narrowly focused on detecting firearms and does not share other images with the information center.
“We’re looking for guns. The only thing that we’re looking for is guns,” he said.
Siers emphasized the move is to prepare for dangerous incidents before they even happen.
“Our resource officers do a great job of trying to study those incidents when they occur and then trying to apply how the lessons learned there might be applied in our schools,” he said. “So it’s just an ongoing process and, unfortunately, it’s something that too many schools are having to deal with.”
If approved, the technology would be implemented at Franklin County Middle School and Franklin County High School.
Roanoke City and Salem Public Schools are among other districts that have used or are considering similar AI detection software.