Salt Lake City High School Students Now Being Screened for Weapons with Detectors
The weapons detectors are placed at the high schools’ main entrances, along with security officers to oversee the screening process.
Image courtesy Evolv
Salt Lake City, Utah – East High School, West High School, and Highland High School have all begun screening their students for weapons with weapons detection technology provided by Evolv. The detectors have been placed in the schools’ main entrances, along with security officers, who will monitor the screening process.
The “soft launch” of the technology on the campuses was Tuesday, reports Fox13. For the remainder of the week school officials and security staff will be available to answer questions about the new system. Next week the detectors will be fully deployed.
The new weapons detection equipment is different from traditional metal detectors because they use artificial intelligence to screen for weapons. Students will not be required to empty their backpacks or go through the screening process one at a time, reports KUER. The machines’ primary purpose is to find weapons that can be used in mass casualty attacks.
If the system detects a suspicious object, the equipment will beep and the video being monitored by a security officer will indicate where there is an issue. The person carrying the object will then be pulled aside for further screening.
KUER reports that the detectors are being leased by the district for $1,440,298. PalAmerican Security is providing the security officers running the machines at a cost of $1,108,490.40.
Funding for the adoption of the new weapons detection system was approved by the school board in January.
Nationwide, the seizure of guns on K-12 campuses has increased recently. According to a reports from the Washington Post, more than six guns per day were seized at U.S. schools during the 2022-2023 academic year. However, the number of firearms seizures is probably a significant underestimate.
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About the Author
Robin Hattersley, Editor-in-Chief
Robin has been covering the security and campus law enforcement industries since 1998 and is a specialist in school, university and hospital security, public safety and emergency management, as well as emerging technologies and systems integration. She joined CS in 2005 and has authored award-winning editorial on campus law enforcement and security funding, officer recruitment and retention, access control, IP video, network integration, event management, crime trends, the Clery Act, Title IX compliance, sexual assault, dating abuse, emergency communications, incident management software and more. Robin has been featured on national and local media outlets and was formerly associate editor for the trade publication Security Sales & Integration. She obtained her undergraduate degree in history from California State University, Long Beach.
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I would like to compare notes from anyone using this system. It looks great in the demo …
I am familiar with it and its honestly difficult with the number of false alerts. My experience is glasses cases, metal binders, large hair clips, lunch boxes and umbrellas as well as some models of lap tops trigger alerts. This evolves to a large work load on the operators/inspectors when processing hundreds of students in less than a half hour. The students come in droves which is nothing like processing for a flight through TSA. The inspector is usually backlogged by the number of false alerts leading to students standing in line waiting to be inspected with less than warm welcoming good morning smiles.
Granted these systems are in the infancy testing stage for educational facilities, they are great for sports events (no binders, laptops, etc.) but not so much for daily student arrivals.