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Seminole County schools testing new active shooter detection tech

OVIEDO, Fla. — Seminole County Public Schools officials say they’ve been testing out new technology as part of a pilot program that could detect an active shooter on campus.

When it comes to an active shooter inside a school, seconds count.

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Surveillance cameras provide an extra pair of eyes but they may not be enough alone to keep kids safe.

That’s where ZeroEyes comes in. Their artificial intelligence software uses a school’s existing cameras to relay information to first-responders.

“At the most simplistic, basic form, if you walk in front of a camera with a gun exposed, it will detect it,” ZeroEyes CEO Rob Huberty says.

As soon as a gun is detected by the software, it sounds the alarm, sending an alert to Philadelphia where a person determines whether it actually is a gun and then notifies the school resource officer.

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Seminole County Schools Safety Director Capt. Rick Francis says they’ve been testing the system on 15 cameras at Oviedo High School over the last 90 days, and he’s impressed.

Francis wants to integrate it into all of the schools in the district to add another layer of security.

“Although vendors will tell you they have the magic wand that will solve every problem we have, that is incorrect,” Francis says. “We look at this as a holistic standpoint, so we are adding layers to the security and this is one of those layers.”

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The cost of the cameras depends on the size of the school, and the number of cameras used with the software.

Rob Huberty says it could cost as low as $15,000 to install, to upwards of six figures.

Jeff Levkulich

Jeff Levkulich, WFTV.com

Jeff Levkulich joined the Eyewitness News team as a reporter in June 2015.