00:00Can drones stop school shooting?
00:02One startup says they can.
00:05The company is called Mithril Defense
00:07and the system is called Campus Guardian Angel.
00:11Nationwide, demonstrations are taking place in schools
00:14like this one include Texas, near Houston.
00:17Basically, it works like this.
00:22Say there's a school shooter.
00:24Small black drones sitting in ceiling boxes burst free.
00:28Indoors, they can move at up to 100 kilometers per hour.
00:31The drones fly in waves.
00:32In tests, the company says they can break through windows,
00:35trigger strobe lights and sirens,
00:37and fire pepper gel at a shooter.
00:39Or physically collide with them to engage or disable them.
00:42Campus Guardian Angel says the system is designed to address
00:45what security experts often describe
00:47as the most dangerous window in a school shooting.
00:49The time between the first alert
00:51and the moment law enforcement makes contact with the attacker.
00:55Tyrone Morrow is in charge of the law enforcement officers
00:58assigned to the school district.
00:59He found the demonstration promising.
01:02Safety is neither convenient or cheap.
01:06So you're either going to pay now or you're going to have to pay later.
01:09And the goal is, you know,
01:10what price tag do you put on a child's life?
01:13And I think it would be a phenomenal piece of equipment
01:17because it can give us real-time information real quick.
01:19And more importantly, it puts my officer in a better position
01:23to tactically be able to respond to an active threat
01:26or active shooter on one of our campuses.
01:29According to health policy research organization KFF,
01:32a student in school today is far more likely to spend a school year
01:36at a school where a shooting takes place
01:38than a student was in the early 2000s,
01:40nearly three times as likely.
01:42As that risk has grown,
01:44the school security industry has expanded too.
01:46From surveillance cameras, metal detectors,
01:49and AI-powered threat detection.
01:51Many schools also have dedicated police officers
01:53known as school resource officers or SROs.
01:57Christoph Oborsky was himself a former school resource officer.
02:01These days, he's the director of tactical operations
02:03at Campus Guardian Angel.
02:05This is one of four operation centers
02:08that we will have here at this location.
02:10So in this space, there are 11 seats,
02:13so four pilots, and then you have seven talk members.
02:16That are controlling different aspects of the communication piece
02:20as well as threat trackers.
02:23From operation centers like this,
02:25teams are meant to monitor incidents in real time,
02:28tracking the attacker's location,
02:30relaying information to law enforcement,
02:32and communicating with teachers
02:34sheltering in classrooms through a dedicated app.
02:36A commander ultimately decides whether force should be used.
02:39In this case, Oborsky.
02:41They are the best drone racing pilots in the world,
02:44but they're not law enforcement.
02:45They don't have years of experience.
02:46So the person in this seat does the articulation of force,
02:50if any force,
02:52and their job is just to fly the drone.
02:54The system is still in its early stages.
02:56Campus Guardian Angel is currently being piloted
02:59in Florida schools at a cost of $557,000 to the state.
03:03With Georgia next,
03:05founder and CEO Justin Marston
03:06has nationwide ambitions.
03:08Gun violence is the primary way,
03:11is the number one way that they get killed,
03:13both in schools and generally.
03:14But every child is much more precious
03:17than the dollars that are spent protecting them.
03:20When asked whether drones address symptoms
03:22rather than the root cause,
03:24Marston is direct.
03:25Gun laws are not his fight.
03:27We can continue to talk about
03:30and have debates around gun control,
03:32but there are so many guns.
03:34I don't know that there is some magical answer to that.
03:37And it's a fundamental right in America.
03:40And so pragmatically,
03:41we're just looking at this and saying,
03:43hey, that's an important debate.
03:45Other people should have that debate.
03:46My opinions are relevant to it.
03:49But the thing I can help with
03:51is stopping lunatics with guns
03:53murdering children in schools.
03:55Discussing the gun control situation
03:57is also a non-starter in schools,
03:59says Ken Trump.
04:00He has spent four decades
04:01as a school security consultant.
04:03The issue of guns has become very politicized,
04:07very polarized,
04:09and people are in their corners
04:13and locked in,
04:15and there is no in-between in the U.S.
04:18politically.
04:19The message that I used to always say to parents
04:23and still say today is,
04:24I'm not going to get into the politics
04:27of gun control and gun rights
04:29because either way you lose the conversation.
04:31But he's not convinced
04:33that Campus Guardian Angel is the answer.
04:35To suggest that somebody's going to be setting
04:39blocks or states away
04:43operating a drone
04:45like you're playing a game on an Xbox
04:49may sound good.
04:51It may sound attractive.
04:53It may sound like,
04:55wow, high tech,
04:56we're going to do this.
04:58But it's unproven.
05:03It's something that some states
05:06have shaken loose some money for
05:11to test the theory.
05:13But schools aren't guinea pigs.
05:15Kids shouldn't be guinea pigs.
05:17And we shouldn't be
05:21testing hypothetical,
05:22unproven
05:24types of
05:25far-out
05:27ideas
05:29just because it sounds good
05:31or because the technology's out there
05:33and people have good intentions.
05:35There's no evidence
05:36that this would actually work
05:38as described
05:39in a real
05:41act of assailant
05:42incidents.
05:43Rather,
05:44what schools need
05:45isn't necessarily something
05:46on the cutting edge
05:47of technology,
05:48Trump says.
05:49As one principal said it best,
05:51he says,
05:51what I really need
05:52are cameras that work
05:54and more bodies,
05:56more adults
05:57to help me supervise
05:58this campus.
06:00He didn't ask for drones.
06:02For now,
06:03Campus Guardian Angel
06:04keeps pitching his system
06:05to more schools
06:06across the country.
06:07What schools are currently doing
06:09is clearly not working
06:10100% of the time.
06:12And that gap
06:12is exactly what's driving
06:14industry solutions
06:15like this one.
06:16The technology
06:17can only truly prove itself
06:18during an actual school shooting.
06:20And if it works even once,
06:22every school district
06:23in America
06:23may want it.
06:25Yet as long as
06:25America's gun laws
06:26remain what they are,
06:28stopping shooters
06:28and preventing them
06:29may both be necessary
06:31and neither
06:31may ever be enough.
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