Cops alerted by AI gun detection system arrest high school student holding bag of Doritos – eight cars dispatched to disarm teenager with chips

A youthful student was left traumatized after police ordered him to the ground and handcuffed because an AI weapons detection system mistakenly called the police about his Doritos addiction.

Taki Allen ate a bag of chips while waiting to be picked up from Kenwood High School in Baltimore last Monday (October 20), he reports WBAL-TV News 11. Football practice was over and the student was sitting with his friends outside the school. However, his crispy meal triggered the school’s Omnilert AI security camera.

20 minutes after he started munching on the salty corn-based treat, eight police cars arrived in response to his snacking habit. Armed police quickly ordered him to his knees and his hands were cuffed behind his back. “It was a scary situation,” Allen explained to WBAL-TV.

It didn’t take long for the AI ​​error to become obvious to everyone involved. However, the police have shown satisfactory transparency regarding the AI ​​problem. According to the student’s interview with local news, he was shown a photo explaining the powerful police response. However, this image intrigued him. “I was just holding a bag of Doritos – it had two hands and one finger on the outside and they said it looked like a gun,” Allen told WBAL-TV 11 News.

Unfortunately, television news cameras failed to pay attention to Allen’s explanatory gestures as he seemingly demonstrated the pose that landed him in handcuffs. We also didn’t see a copy of the AI ​​triggering scene from that evening. So we’re left with a cautionary tale without clear instructions on how to safely carry a bag of Doritos.

Omnilert AI’s fault?

Omnilert is the AI-powered gun detection software company behind this high-profile firearm hallucination. The company declined to WBAL-TV 11 News to comment on the emergency call error. It said it “does not comment on internal school procedures” (WBAL-TV quote, not Omnilert’s exact words).

We checked out Omnilert’s School Security Systems product pages for more information on how the product works. One of the biggest attractions of the Omnilert is that it can work with a range of security cameras already installed. Its name advertising material examines the tragedies of school shootings such as Uvalde, Sandy Hook and Parkland, suggesting that Omnilert could have prevented them.

Omnilert’s vigorous shooter and weapons detection system is said to consist of three stages. After a positive detection of an AI weapon, there is allegedly a human verification stage before automatic notification and emergency response.

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We can’t point to any of these processes being wrong, however, since police also thought the photo of Doritos in hand resembled a gun enough to dispatch an eight-car response team. WBAL-TV’s report says officers had a copy of the AI ​​triggering scene with them to show to a stunned Allen, but we’re not 100% sure about the timeline of the reveal.

Omnilert and the school offered assistance to the students involved in the incident.

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