MIAMI – To keep students safe, Miami-Dade schools use AI are choose gun-detection equipment over metal detectors.
“Once they leave their home, everyone wants their child to come back safely,” Sherina Akins, a mother of a student at Miami-Dade Public Schools, stated.
Parents all around South Florida and the country can relate to this emotion. Parents have started wondering if their kids are in the best position to stay safe. It has also pushed school systems to update their safety strategies constantly.
Another father, Leon, stated, “I recently moved my daughter from another school to this one, in part, for safety and security.”
Broward County Public Schools installed walk-through metal detectors this school year to enhance safety. However, Miami-Dade parents shouldn’t expect the same. Rather, the district spent the summer testing new AI technology.
“Artificial intelligence detection of firearms,” Luisa Santos, a board member of MDCPS, stated.
Broward Schools Adopt Metal Detectors
Santos mentioned that nine schools, including the one in Pinecrest visited by CBS News Miami, use security cameras and software to spot firearms outside.
“The blind tests that were conducted by our police department, it turned out that the technology is very effective,” Santos stated.
ZeroEyes is the company responsible for AI gun detection. After the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting in Parkland, it was established in 2018.
“America seemed to reel from that one more than most of the prior ones,” ZeroEyes co-founder Sam Alaimo reported. “I reflected on myself around that time. Our CEO, who served with me in the SEAL teams, picked up his daughter from school. She had just completed an active shooter drill.”
Alaimo’s Command Center in Pennsylvania
Alaimo launched the company from its command center in Pennsylvania. Law enforcement officers or retired military veterans manned the operation.
“The moment a gun is exposed, a still frame image comes up,” Alaimo stated. “The customer obtains it by a variety of methods after the human confirms that it is, in fact, a gun and hits dispatch. This takes us three to five seconds in the real world.”
According to Alaimo, they have 24 Florida-based clientele. Santos feels that adopting the technology is a better course of action than setting up metal detectors, thus Dade Schools may be the next.
“Acquiring the metal detectors is between 3.5 and $5.5 million,” Santos stated. “And staff those metal detectors because having metal detectors alone isn’t enough. We would have to pay roughly $17 million annually for that. For something that hasn’t been shown to work, the price is extremely exorbitant. Logistics are another issue that worries us.”
According to her, ZeroEyes would cost $500,000 a year.
Miami-Dade Schools Boost Security with New Technology and Increased Tips
“We make sure to assign it to an officer to make sure they follow up if we see a threat or something that needs to be addressed,” stated Ivan E. Silva, the police chief for Miami-Dade Schools.
Despite the testing of new technology and the approximately 18,000 cameras in use throughout the district, tips are still crucial.
Since classes began last month, the average number of tips received by Miami-Dade schools using AI has been over 100 per day. For the first time this school year, they have a dedicated full-time team that uses K-9 units and wands to do random sweeps at every school to find firearms on school property.
“We want to basically be able to cover more schools and … have more quantity of schools covered versus what we had before,” Silva said.
According to Silva, he intends to suggest that the district purchase and employ AI gun detection equipment. Board member Santos mentioned they are still in the early stages of planning.
She said she could not provide a precise timeline for when a vote might occur to approve and fund it. The chief stated the best way to ensure long-term student safety is for officers to build a strong rapport with them.
“Ones that bring us information of things that are happening in the schools,” Silva remarked. They are in charge of alerting us to any unlawful contraband, including drugs or firearms. Because of our relationship with those pupils, we can resolve the majority of our cases in this manner.