Chips Flagged As Gun By AI: Video Released Of School Search

ESSEX, MD — Police released body camera video from the call where an artificial intelligence security system flagged a bag of chips as a possible gun at a Baltimore County school.

Patch on Monday obtained body camera video showing five police officers approaching four males outside Kenwood High School in Essex on Oct. 20 at 7:23 p.m. To see the full video, click here.

Authorities told the males to get on their knees and put their hands above their heads. The students cooperated with all orders, and police handcuffed them while they searched the scene.

One student asked if this was because they stayed on campus, but an officer told them it was not.

An officer asked one student, who was pressed against the hood of a police car, if he had a gun or anything blue on him. He said no, and officers checked his phone to see if it matched the object flagged as a gun. It did not match.

An officer asked where the call came from. Another replied that it was from Omnilert, the artificial intelligence system used by Baltimore County Public Schools to detect possible weapons caught on camera.

The first officer said he hadn't yet seen the photo from the alert, and another officer showed him the photo of what Omnilert flagged as a potential gun.

"I don't think that is. It looks like a bag of something," the first officer said.

The officer who showed the photo said the object in the picture looked like a bag of chips.

"Yeah, it looks like just some empty like Ziploc bag," the first officer replied.

The two walked over to a trash can, where they found discarded bags of chips.

"Blue? Well, for me, that's what it looks like right here. It looks like that," the officer with the photo said, holding a chip bag from the trash to the picture.

The first officer agreed that the photo flagged as a threat only showed a bag of chips, not a weapon.

"The cameras around the system, they pick up on things that look like guns," the officer told the students. "I guess just the way you guys were eating chips, Doritos or whatever, it picked it up as a gun. That's all. AI's not the best."

Officers showed the photo to a student before identifying and releasing the parties involved.

"The officers responded appropriately and proportionally based on the information provided at the time," Baltimore County Police Department spokesperson Joy Lepola-Stewart told Patch in a Monday email. "The incident was safely resolved after it was determined there was no threat."

One of the students involved, 16-year-old Taki Allen, told WMAR he was waiting outside the school for his ride home from football practice.

"Now, I feel like sometimes after practice I don't go outside anymore. Cause if I go outside, I don't want — don't think I'm safe enough to go outside, especially eating a bag of chips or drinking something. I just stay inside until my ride comes," Allen told WMAR.

WJZ reported that BCPS Superintendent Myriam Rodgers said, "The program did what it was supposed to do, which was signal an alert and for humans to take a look to find out if there was cause for concern in that moment."

Some community leaders question how well the situation was handled.

"How did it come to be that we had police officers with guns drawn approaching a kid because of a bag of Doritos?" Baltimore County Council Member Julian Jones (D-Woodstock) told WJZ.

Omnilert said last week that the system worked as intended.

"It was verified and forwarded within seconds to Baltimore County Public Schools' safety team for their assessment," Omnilert told WJZ. "Within moments, the event was marked as resolved in our system. Omnilert's involvement concluded at that point, and the system operated as designed — detecting a possible threat, routing it for human review, and ensuring rapid, informed decision-making."

Related: Student Handcuffed After AI Flags Chips For Gun At Kenwood High: Reports