AST July 2018 Magazine AST July 2018 Magazine Issue 24 | Page 5

Volume
So,
why 25 video analyt-
ics, and why now?
July 2018 Edition
The Active Shooter
Unfortunately, it is far too
easy to drum up an example
about active shooters on
both corporate and public
campuses.
Whether a disgruntled em-
ployee, such as was the
(After Jarros Ramos refused to cooperate with authorities, the gunman was identified
case in the YouTube shoot- using the facial recognition Maryland Image Repository System.)
ing, or one of the myriad of
school shootings, or the most recent shoot- Face recognition software could have
ing at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis,
been used on the other side of the
Maryland.
incident, as well.
In fact, the shooting at the Gazette is
a microcosm of both a good use of AI
and a bad, or lack thereof use, in pub-
lic safety and threat management.
What we now know: The shooter
was a known threat to the Gazette.
The staff was informed that they
should call the police were they
ever to see the shooter.
Guns, guards, and gates, the holy grail
of traditional physical security, are no
longer adequate tools in protecting our
physical spaces and people.
Instead of relying on a call to the police by a
security guard or an employee in the heat of
the moment , Mr. Ramos’s face could have been
uploaded into the company’s AI-powered securi-
ty solution that would have the capability to alert
the security and staff the moment his face was
detected on any camera.
Let’s imagine those cameras were
In the aftermath of the shooting,
outside, would the shooter have
the local police used facial recogni- been stopped before he entered
the building?
tion software to identify him.
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