In a pilot program, Deltona High School is one of the first schools in the country to try out drones from Campus Guardian Angel designed to respond quickly to an active shooter response.
The drones are about the size of a large frisbee and use non-lethal tactics like sirens, strobes and pepper gel to distract and disorient a potential shooter. Plus, the drones livestream everything to law enforcement.
If those tactics don’t work, each device can hit someone at about 60 to 70 miles an hour. Each drone can respond within 15 seconds of being notified of an active shooter via an app that school staff and the Austin, Texas-based Campus Guardian Angel Co. have access to. The goal is to stop the threat and buy time for law enforcement to arrive
“Most mass shootings are over in two minutes, so in 120 seconds, that is your window to really try and engage and stop this person from killing people,” Justin Marston said, the CEO of Campus Guardian Angel. “So, our goal is to take that period from three to eight minutes and take it down to 15 seconds…and if they're trying to fight off drones, if they're running away from drones … all of that is buying the time for first responders to get here.”
Once notified, the drones deploy from mounted boxes set up at various points throughout a school. During a live demonstration on Friday, three drones flew out of a mounted box towards a plastic dummy. The drones demonstrated what would happen in an emergency, and circled the figurine with lights and strobes before an officer came and tackled the plastic mannequin.
Deltona High will have 39 drones across the campus once the company finishes installation and the program goes live. Marston said the number of drones at other schools would depend on the size of the campus.
The Florida Legislature provided $557,000 in funding for this initiative across the districts: Volusia, Broward and Leon counties. DeltonaHigh is the only school in Volusia County to implement this pilot program.
“Come August, when the schools come back, that's when we're going to be live,” Marston said. “So if somebody comes in with a gun, we will be responding in five seconds. We have all the team there on the watch floor, and they hit the button and you get an Air Force.”
Deltona High School principal Christina Lapnow said these drones are just an added layer of safety. There are over 23 safety and security measures on campus.
“It's the last thing I want my students to worry about,” Lapnow said. “I always want them to feel safe. I want them to be excited to come to school…. So, what this gives to us is just an extra layer of all the other pieces that we have in place to ensure that our campus is as safe as possible every single day.”
