High-tech security system coming to Baltimore County schools
Baltimore County Public Schools is rolling out a new high-tech security system it hopes will keep schools safe.
In 2022, six guns turned up in BCPS school buildings, prompting leaders to take action.
The new system, Omnilert, taps into existing cameras to identify weapons and then sends alerts to the school's safety team and law enforcement.
"What this system does is it helps us to provide emergency response right away," BCPS Superintendent Myriam Yarbrough said.
That alone was an important selling point, Yarbrough said at a press conference Wednesday. The gun detection system will be connected to at least 7,000 school cameras to start.
"When you are watching those cameras, and you can react in less than a second to a gun being visible, then it gives you the ability to alert the outcome too, and set into action a whole series of protective measures," Omnilert CEO Dave Fraser said.
Using advanced artificial intelligence algorithms, video collected from security cameras can be analyzed in real time.
"In a lot of cases where there have been horrific incidents, every second and every minute counts, and you have people who are either frozen in the moment, or you have people who assume someone else has called 911," Yarbrough said.
"So what we are seeing is this combination of quite affordable and easy-to-install technology that can have an impact, and that's exciting for the school superintendents and other administrators, as well as parents, of course," Fraser said.
Fraser said BCPS is the latest in a number of schools that have adopted the technology in the past six months.
