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During Georgia School Shooting, Newly-Installed Tech Spread Warnings and Called Police (cnn.com) 255

A schoolteacher using an interactive whiteboard is surprised by an alert. Their school is in "hard lockdown." They knew — instantly — something was about to happen, and "got everybody into a corner," they later told CNN. Classroom doors at the school are always locked, so they then "turned off the lights. And just kind of held everyone nice and tight, and just said, 'Wait for everything to happen, everything to pass.'"

The school was Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, where on Wednesday 11 students were shot and two killed. Two schoolteachers were also killed. But according to CNN, social studies teacher Stephen Kreyenbuhl "said the school's new alert system bought him critical time to prepare and protect his students before a shooter opened fire just down the hall..." The CrisisAlert system, designed by Centegix, includes a device the size of an ID badge. It's equipped with a button that, when pressed rapidly, can quietly notify administrators and local law enforcement to the exact location of an active emergency. The company works with school districts and law enforcement agencies to integrate the system into their current safety procedures and automate as much as possible. Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith told CNN Apalachee High School had the system for less than a week and had tested it for the first time only the day before the shooting... Brent Cobb, the company's CEO, told CNN in an interview earlier this year that their CrisisAlert technology was designed following the 2018 Parkland high school shooting in Florida to give teachers and administrators a fast and discreet way to call for help.... "[Y]ou need everyone to know immediately" that a crisis is taking place.

Once a lockdown is activated, the CrisisAlert system is designed to trigger a series of responses: Pre-recorded warnings sound over the intercom system to alert the entire campus to the lockdown, while on-site safety administrators, like school resource officers [a law-enforcement officer with arrest powers, usually armed], are notified of the location of the incident. Cobb told CNN in some school districts the system is also integrated with local law enforcement agencies and can automatically call 911 and send messages to officers of the exact location of the incident. This is what happened in Barrow County. The goal, he said, is to help decrease police response times, an issue that has come under scrutiny in recent years following the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where it took officers 77 minutes to adequately respond to a shooter.

In an exclusive interview with CNN Thursday, Smith scrolled through the series of alerts and the detailed map his officers received to guide them to where the shooting was happening... [Social studies teacher] Kreyenbuhl said he is grateful the district implemented a system that enabled him to protect his students. "I actually saw the lockdown initiate before I even heard the gunshots, so I had time to prepare," he said.... "It's insane the technology we have access to."

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During Georgia School Shooting, Newly-Installed Tech Spread Warnings and Called Police

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  • Problem solved! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Zigakly ( 5628338 ) on Sunday September 08, 2024 @02:05PM (#64772320)
    This is what passes for good news in the US apparently. Sounds like it was taken from the pages of prison riot protocols.
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      In instead of all this high-tech Rube Goldberg nonsense, why not just get rid of the guns?
      • Re:Problem solved! (Score:5, Informative)

        by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Sunday September 08, 2024 @02:13PM (#64772336)

        America made the decision long ago that it loves guns more than children.

        Canada has children, schools, and people that own guns. Yet they don't seen monthly school shootings.

        • Monthly? Are you sure about that? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

          Mass shootings since January 2023:
          September 7, 2024
          September 4, 2024
          September 2, 2024
          July 13, 2024
          July 6, 2024
          June 23, 2024
          June 21, 2024
          June 15, 2024
          May 30, 2024
          April 29, 2024
          February 18, 2024
          February 14, 2024
          February 7, 2024
          January 21–22, 2024
          January 4, 2024
          December 6, 2023
          December 5, 2023
          October 29, 2023
          October 29, 2023
          October 25, 2023
          August 26, 2023
          August 23, 2023
          July 14, 2023
          July 14, 2023
          July 2, 2023
          Ju
          • Re:Problem solved! (Score:5, Informative)

            by ravenshrike ( 808508 ) on Sunday September 08, 2024 @04:57PM (#64772722)

            Given that the majority of those were gang slayings and one was the assassination attempt on Trump, your list is invalid. The rise of mass killings by non gang members only occurred after the meteoric rise in psychotropic drug prescriptions among young adults from the late 80's onwards. Almost as if purposefully fucking with brain chemistry can occasionally have very nasty side effects.

        • by hey! ( 33014 )

          It's not that we decided we like guns more than children; it's that we decided we don't want to think about it. The political refrain after a mass school shooting is always, "now is not the time" to think about what we should do about guns. Given that in the years between 2005 and 2022 there were fourteen major mass school shootings, blacking out aftermath periods doesn't leave us much opportunity to do something about guns, and that's no accident. We'd rather think about hardening schools because that's *

      • In very curious how this 14 year-old got sn "AR Style" gun into school? Did it fit in his backpack? Did he assemble it from pieces in the bathroom?

        • I know, I mean typically people with these kind of guns are picked off by artillery easily when they move without mechanised support, although recently explosive drones have been more popular. I for one would be questioning the schools reconnaissance units about this incident.
        • Did it fit in his backpack?

          If you remove the BCG and separate the upper and lower receivers, an AR-15 can fit in a backpack.

          Did he assemble it from pieces in the bathroom?

          Maybe. Connecting the upper and lower receivers, and reinserting the BCG takes about 15 seconds.

          BCG = Bolt Carrier Group

      • Agreed. What kind of country has a family that thinks giving a 14 year old boy a combat rifle, and access to the ammunition for it, a good idea?

        They are not crazed nutters. They are a product of the society they live in. God help your country.

      • by stwrtpj ( 518864 )

        In instead of all this high-tech Rube Goldberg nonsense, why not just get rid of the guns?

        While I am in favor of reasonable gun control laws, this is not going to solve the entire issue. The root cause for these shootings needs to be determined, or they'll just find another way to cause more death. But where in this country we're more concerned with incarceration than reform and prevention, that will not happen anytime soon.

        • Re:Problem solved! (Score:5, Insightful)

          by shilly ( 142940 ) on Monday September 09, 2024 @01:31AM (#64773358)

          No, they won't find another way to cause so many deaths, because guns are much the most efficient method. 14 year olds can't use a vehicle to kill their teachers and classmates in school, because a vehicle can't physically get inside. They can't use a knife or flail or hammer to kill on the same scale as guns, because those are all close quarter weapons and don't kill people at the same rate, and they'll be overpowered at some point. They can't use a bow and arrow or crossbow to kill at the same rate, because those weapons have nowhere near the same rate of fire as guns, and require a significant amount of skill.

          It's the guns that are the problem, and beyond that, it's this complete inability of people to accept that yes, it's the guns that are the problem that is the secondary problem.

      • They did - wasnt this school a no gun zone?

  • by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Sunday September 08, 2024 @02:15PM (#64772340)

    Shootings in schools happening so frequently they have developed special alert systems.

    How about we get some of that special glass thet JD Vance stands behind at his gun free rallies? https://abcnews.go.com/Politic... [go.com]

    • Squirrel! (Score:5, Informative)

      by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Sunday September 08, 2024 @02:58PM (#64772444) Homepage Journal

      The Georgia school shooter's mother called the school [washingtonpost.com]

      From that link:

      That account is supported by a call log from the family’s shared phone plan, which shows a 10-minute call from the mother’s phone to the school starting at 9:50 a.m. — about a half-hour before witnesses have said the gunman opened fire.

      “I was the one that notified the school counselor at the high school,” Marcee Gray texted her sister following the shooting on Sept. 4, according to a screenshot of the exchange. “I told them it was an extreme emergency and for them to go immediately and find [my son] to check on him.”

      And the administrator confused the shooter with another shooter, and confiscated the wrong student's bag:

      Around the same time, a school administrator went to the son’s math classroom, according to Lyela Sayarath, a student in the class. Sayarath said there seemed to be confusion involving another student in the class with a name similar to that of Gray’s son. Neither student was in the room, and the official left with a backpack belonging to the similarly named student, she said. The shooting began minutes later.

      He was having mental health problems:

      The texts also show that the school and family were in contact about his mental health a week before the shooting, and that Brown told a relative the teen was at the time having “homicidal and suicidal thoughts.”

      Brown previously told The Post that her nephew had spent months “begging” for mental health help, and that the “adults around him failed him.” His struggles were complicated by a difficult home life, she said.

      Oh, and FBI interviewed him last year:

      In May 2023, local law enforcement officers contacted the teen after receiving an FBI tip about online threats to carry out a school shooting, according to records released by the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office. The teen denied that he had made any such threats. Colin Gray told authorities at the time that he kept hunting rifles in the house, and that his son was allowed to use them with supervision but did not have “unfettered access.”

      Let's all despair over the fancy new tech that informs teachers when shootings happen elsewhere in the school, but whatever else happens,

      don't look at the elephants in the room!

      Look! Squirrel!

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        The elephant in the room is taking away a person's guns is nearly impossible thanks to people who make firearm ownership their entire personality.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Funny how basically _nobody_ else has that problem. Sure, very rarely this happens in other places. But in the US it is basically a weekly occurrence. What is wrong with you people?

    • We can now leave no child behind, so the trouble makers can't be kick out before becoming a festering problem. Will it help, I don't know but what is currently happening is just not working.

      Even fighting crime is now reduced to tolerance and litigation. Theft is priced into economy. Everyone must be free to do the harm they want to others...
    • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Shootings in schools happening so frequently they have developed special alert systems.

      No, there's a whole ecosystem around it nowadays.

      You've got basic school supplies like kevlar backpacks. You've got active shooter drills (replacing the old nuclear prep drills during the Cold War). You've got products designed to bolt into the floor to barricade the doors.

      Basically the whole school shooting thing has a whole industry of protections. And more stuff is being created every day.

      It won't be long until places

  • by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Sunday September 08, 2024 @02:15PM (#64772342)

    The county’s Battalion 1 unit arrived on scene 8 minutes later, and emergency rescue services entered the school by 10:34 a.m.

    I'm not saying they were too slow but I am saying that the idea that this fixes anything is patently absurd. Gun ownership needs real regulation. You hobby is NOT more important than the lives of victims.

    • I would really like to see what would happen if BLM started doing open carry protests in cities. See my signature for what happened when the Black Panthers tried it last.

      • I would really like to see what would happen if BLM started doing open carry protests in cities.

        BLM protestors in Seattle carried rifles, including AR-15s.

    • Gun ownership needs real regulation. You hobby is NOT more important than the lives of victims.

      Oh yeah! Come take my guns [imgur.com]!

    • I'm not saying they were too slow but I am saying that the idea that this fixes anything is patently absurd. Gun ownership needs real regulation. You hobby is NOT more important than the lives of victims.

      Classroom doors at the school are always locked..

      Im not saying anti-gun zealots ultimately want to disarm everyone, but when you refuse to acknowledge a failure of their own fucking policy, it tends to scream a strong message. (The shooter attempted to enter his own classroom which was locked, but found the “always locked” one across the hall cracked open.)

    • by linuxguy ( 98493 )

      > You hobby is NOT more important than the lives of victims.

      People have been putting out thoughts and prayers. They've been working really really hard at this. Surprisingly it hasn't worked. Maybe we just need to dial it up a notch. Make prayer mandatory after every shooting?

      Some people have also said that if you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns. This is a good point. Since criminals do not obey laws, we should reconsider murder as a crime. It is already illegal, but people keep doing it.

    • You should leave this country.

      Go somewhere like Mao's China or Stalin's Russia.

      Citizen disarmament will make you happy.

      In this country we do dangerous liberty, not totalitarian "safetyism".

  • Not Brit but 'rang' was the only way I could fit in the subject. Fucking Slashdot wankers.

    With that much advanced notice and the history of school shootings in the USA, you'd think they have had their shit together quickly. Btw, the kid didn't live with his mother, so she must have had some contact with him.

    Given that 30 minutes wasn't enough, I guess they couldn't find a good man with a gun. /s Fucking Americans and NRA John Wayne bullshit thinking.
    • Given that 30 minutes wasn't enough, I guess they couldn't find a good man with a gun. /s Fucking Americans and NRA John Wayne bullshit thinking.

      You do know the campus was put on lockdown before the shooting started, right?

      You do know that the school had an armed resource officer on-campus, right?

      You do know that the armed resource officer took the shooter into custody within moments of getting to the shooter, right?

      WTF does "NRA John Wayne thinking" mean?

      (You are aware that the NRA offers schools security assessments and advice, and offers to help train staff to defend/protect students, [nraschoolshield.org] right?)

      I'm curious how the student brought a rifle on to campu

    • by vivian ( 156520 )

      The kid texted the mom with something along the lines of "Sorry for what I am about to do", she realised it means he was probably going to do what he had previously threatened to do and called the school councellors. Unfortunately the school councillors didn't know this troubled kid well enough and confiscated the backpack of another kid with a very similar name.
      I am sure that will be haunting them for a long time, and but for that coincidence in name similarity this might have been a story at the b

  • That really isn't what's insane in this country.

  • A couple of thoughts (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Baron_Yam ( 643147 )

    1) Security systems are at best a bandaid on a sucking chest wound. There's a reason kids are grabbing guns and mowing down classmates. According to some CNN-gathered stats I just googled, the US had 288 school shootings from 2009-2018. The next highest total was Mexico with... 8. Maybe tell the gun nuts to sit down, adults are talking, and start addressing ammosexual culture as the problem it is.

    2) I'm not even sure lockdowns are a decent solution. They're great for containing a shooter so the cops c

    • Maybe tell the gun nuts to sit down, adults are talking

      Every time that's been tried, swing voters in Pennsylvania and the Upper Midwest support Republicans, and Democrats lose the next election.

      Do you remember back in 2020, when Biden talked about appointing Beto O'Rourke to be his "Gun Czar"?

      That didn't happen, and it wasn't only because Beto went on a public rant, calling gun owners "m*therf*uckers" on live TV.

  • by oumuamua ( 6173784 ) on Sunday September 08, 2024 @02:55PM (#64772438)
    Same motive as for one of the very first mass shootings, Columbine.

    He also said his son had struggled since he and his wife separated and Colt was picked on in school.

    https://apnews.com/article/geo... [apnews.com]
    Well at least they have policies for it, question is whether it gets implemented https://www.stopbullying.gov/r... [stopbullying.gov]

    • Haven't had any school shootings here that I can ever recall, but we have lockdown drills to terrify our children and anti-bullying policies.

      In my experience, the result of these policies is that the admins deny bullying is happening because if they admit to it they'd have to do something about it. But the kids wear pink shirts and march up and down the street every once in a while, so I guess that's supposed to mean my kid's friend wasn't really bullied.

      Overall it seems like school's a lot better on the b

    • It's easy for people not to acknowledge this is typically what drives the shootings. People don't want to "sympathize with a killer".

      What they don't realize is, he didn't have to be a killer. Maybe if school was a tolerable place, with teachers who cared, it would have been a refuge for him to get away from his family problems. Instead school was a prison for him. Then we gave the prisoner an AR.

      Much the same thing happens in the open-air prison called Palestine, and people just can't figure out why those k

      • Humans are very adaptable. Sure, occasionally you have someone who is just 'wired wrong' from birth, but mostly what you have are average blank slates waiting to be conditioned by their environment.

        And honestly, when you read about how bullied some of these kids were, I think that kind of shit would break a lot of adults and make them consider vengeful murder sprees. In fact, it may not happen as often as with kids, but it happens.

    • There's not a school in the world where there isn't someone being massively bullied. There are however plenty of schools in the world where the victim can't just go home and borrow a gun from daddy's collection.

      God I miss the days of a decent fist fight.

    • Same motive as for one of the very first mass shootings, Columbine.

      He also said his son had struggled since he and his wife separated and Colt was picked on in school.

      https://apnews.com/article/geo... [apnews.com]

      Well at least they have policies for it, question is whether it gets implemented
      https://www.stopbullying.gov/r... [stopbullying.gov]

      I definitely agree that bullying is a problem (and likely a contributor), though it's also something that's really hard to fix.

      Among other things, bullies really target kids who are "weird" in one way or another. And I suspect, in general, kids who become school shooters are pretty weird.

      So definitely try to reduce bullying, but I think people have been trying to do that forever and it keep happening because it's part of human nature.

      I think the better fix is to hire more councillors to actually help the ki

    • School choice fixes this.

      NEA constantly blocks the only known fix for school bullying.

      You're absolutely right it's extremely common in these cases but suicide is orders of magnitude higher as the resulting of schooling bullying.

      NEA is effectively accessory to negligent homicide for their own profit.

  • That sounds like a fire hazard. One that may well kill a few more people in the longer run than shooters.

    • Code requires marked emergency exits that can only be locked to prevent entry. Those doors locked the kid out of the classroom but it didn't lock him in the building.
      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        So the shooter just needs to trick a kid into opening that emergency exit and is golden? Cool design...

        • I think most schools today funnel all the kids through a single entry that can be monitored. Other entry doors likely have crash bars that unlock the door in an emergency, but also trigger an alarm. Nobody is going to be casually tricked into opening that kind of exterior door.

          The kid that got up could have opened the classroom door. Fortunately he looked first and saw the gun.

    • That sounds like a fire hazard.

      The locks prevent entry to the classroom, not exit.

      Locks preventing exit violate the fire code and have been illegal since 1911.

      Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire [wikipedia.org]

  • Classroom doors at the school are always locked

    America is truly a different world from the one I live in.

  • Those fancy ID tags didn't hurt, but what made an immediate difference was the self-locking doors. Instead of shooting a classroom full of kids he was stuck in the hallway. That's a pretty inexpensive change that any school system should implement.
  • by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Sunday September 08, 2024 @07:16PM (#64772960) Homepage Journal

    Local press has verified that the mother placed a call to the school 30 minutes before the incident and said it was an "extreme emergency" that they get to the boy.

    And followed up with texts.

    Nothing against the technology but there's a major human failure here.

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