GRAND ISLAND, N.Y. (WKBW) — It has been three-and-a-half years since the racist mass shooting at Tops on Jefferson Avenue. That shooting was a lesson -- a wake up call -- for the Grand Island school superintendent who decided more needed to be done to protect students and staff.
So the district invested in A-I technology to detect a gun on school property. But in a day and age where school shootings have become all too common, is this technology working or is it there just to provide comfort?
Outside Grand Island schools, surveillance cameras are rolling 24/7. What you don't see is an AI technology that can help detect a gun. It's called Zero Eyes. Superintendent Dr. Brian Graham says they're monitored off site, in Philadelphia.
WATCH: How are Grand Island Schools keeping students safe?
"If there's an alert, at any camera, that picture pops up on their monitors," Graham said.
A picture is then sent via text to the superintendent and others. It even alerts police. It gives a timeline, showcasing a trail of travel. He says Zero Eyes can detect as little as an eighth of an inch of a gun.
7 News Chief Investigator Ed Drantch asked about effectiveness.
Drantch: This is all well and good, the technology that's here to pick it up, identify and communicate. But seconds matter in these situations. So while this is identifying a gun, the reality is, it could have already been used. How do you weigh the two?
Graham: Well first off, the literature says that 80-85% of an occurrence of a mass shooting, the weapon is brandished outside. That's really important for me as a school superintendent to understand that our outdoor cameras could pick up this alert before someone has entered the building.
On its website, Zero Eyes claimed its system could prevent active shooter and mass shooting incidents. But the company has been criticized for its marketing.
Drantch: How do you respond
Graham: I think it's going to slow things down a little bit so that time is on our side. It's just another tool.
Drantch: So just so that we're all clear here. What I'm hearing you say is that although you're confident in the system, you are not confident it would stop a school shooting.
Graham: Yeah, I would say there are so many variables.
J.T. Wilkins is the Senior Vice President of Sales for Zero Eyes.
Drantch: Does Zero Eyes stop a shooting?
Wilkins: Our goal is to provide situational awareness back to our clients to make the best decisions possible in the amount of time they have.
Interestingly enough, in the days after this interview with Wilkins, Zero Eyes changed its website. No longer does it say anything about the product stopping a mass shooting.
Dr. Kenneth Trump is a school safety consultant, who says this kind of technology may not actually make your kids any safer.
"I call it security theater," Trump said. "We often find huge gaps between how security products and technology are marketed and how they actually work and don't work."
Systems like Evolv have come under scrutiny as well. Evolv is used in Buffalo Public Schools. It's an AI, airport style security system that is supposed to detect weapons.
But in September 2024, a 15-year-old student was stabbed in a stairwell inside McKinley High School with a pocket knife. Then Superintendent Dr. Tonja Williams Knight acknowledged the stabbing, but had no answers, defending the district and its use of Evolv.
"We have it set, because it's the start of the year in all of our schools not just McKinley, but on the highest level. So it's very sensitive to making sure that the system is able to detect threats," Williams Knight said.
A year later the new superintendent Dr. Pascal Mubenga, would not do an interview with the 7 News I-Team. Instead we were sent a statement, explaining
“Buffalo Public Schools is proud of the fact that the overwhelming majority of students arrive at school each day ready to learn and show respect for one another and our community. The Buffalo Public Schools uses a multi-layered strategy to help ensure safety and security at all of its schools, including security protocols, the Evolv weapons detection system, security cameras and wand-based BPS security checks. As part of the district's efforts to protect students and employees, a team of Buffalo Police officers known as School Resource Officers are also assigned to our schools.”
According to a 2024 settlement, between the Federal Trade Commission and Evolv, the company misrepresented its scanners would detect all weapons, explaining scanners failed — in several instances — to detect weapons in schools. That includes one case, outside of Western New York, when a seven-inch knife was brought into a school outside and was used to stab a student in 2022.
Nine of these Evolv scanners are being installed at the Keybank Center as Evolv becomes the Sabres official fan screening partner.
These companies stand to make a lot of money, showcasing the latest and greatest in school safety, in Las Vegas. Curt Lavarello is the Executive Director of the School Safety Advocacy Council.
"All of this technology is very, very expensive," Lavarello said. "I see a lot of products that may not necessarily do what they're being sold to do."
An analysis from the procurement database, GovSpend, found K-12 public schools nationwide have spent nearly a half-billion dollars, upgrading security infrastructure with various pieces of technology over the past five years.
"Well, I think any time you influx a market with the kind of dollars that we've seen go to school safety over the years, and it doesn't look-- have any end in sight, it looks like there are gonna be school safety dollars for a good, long time to come," Lavarello said.
On Grand Island, the superintendent says the district pays just under $50,000 a year to maintain the system. He believes New York State should open up funding, allowing for all schools to install Zero Eyes or similar AI systems.
"Because of the nature of the statistics and when those guns are brandished, I think we can keep more and more of our stakeholders safe if this technology is activated," Graham said.
Grahm says there are other layers of security at schools, district-wide, but that this AI technology is just one tool. Relationship building, he says is most important in keeping kids safe.
Evolv did not respond to our request for a comment.
