COBB COUNTY, Ga. — Rolando Moore is a student at Cobb County's Wheeler High School. Last Friday, he was arrested by police, accused of carrying a gun on a school bus and into the school.
According to arrest warrants, Moore has been charged with two felonies for "carrying a concealed 9 mm Glock model 19 handgun in his backpack," both on the school bus and also at school. The warrants further stated that the handgun was "loaded with 7 rounds of 9 mm ammunition."
The incident with Moore was not the only example of students carrying weapons into schools in metro Atlanta this school year, which is, at most, less than a month old.
Schools have become very good at locking down and responding when they find weapons, but the larger question has become how to prevent weapons from getting to school campuses in the first place.
"There are no simple [solutions such as] just put in metal detectors and everything will be okay," said Michael Dorn of Safe Havens International in Macon. "That's definitely a mistake. Typically they're not that effective because of the large volume of students who have to enter in a short period of time."
Dorn is a school security consultant who is working with hundreds of schools across Georgia that have been deciding how to spend a new state grant of $30,000 per school. The purpose of each grant is to enhance security.
Dorn said one of the ways to prevent students from sneaking guns into schools is basic.
He said that good student supervision at the front end is a start, so school staff can head off problems that a student might think bringing a gun to school could solve.
Dorn said that schools are also installing smart cameras with artificial intelligence software as one of many ways to help monitor and supervise students.
"Twenty years ago, cameras could help you figure out who did what, after the fact," Dorn said. "Today's smart camera technologies have some very good prevention capabilities," such as detecting behaviors that can indicate risk.
"People loitering in a stairwell that can be a drug deal that can end up in a shooting," for example. "The analytics don't specifically say, this person's going to commit a crime. They just pull up a camera view and then a human has to look at it and say, there's nothing wrong, or this bears further investigation.... But for the first time, now, cameras can help augment human student supervision."
And Dorn said, in his experience, "the most accurate predictor of weapons violence by a student against other students is the number of fights that you have in a school," with student supervision--using high-tech tools along with one-on-one interaction--helping to get to the causes of tensions and fights, to stop them before anyone thinks of sneaking a gun to school.
Smart cameras and smart supervision - a combination of many new and old tools that Dorn said promise to be more effective than, say, metal detectors.
"Our school officials are much better equipped and trained and prepared than they used to be to prevent and respond to attacks of violence," he said.
In the long run, Dorn believes a balanced approach of new and old methods will help prevent guns from getting into the schools in the first place.
"Generally, schools [across Georgia] are using a good mix of using that state funding for prevention--technologies and equipment, and software and hardware--as well as increased and improved emergency preparedness."
No one from Cobb County Schools administration responded to 11Alive's request for an interview Tuesday. A spokesperson sent this email, instead, with a link to more information about the system's school security program and initiatives:
"As in previous years, our highest priority is ensuring the safety of our students and the security of our schools. Our 65 highly-trained veteran police officers work together to keep our students and staff safe and employ a variety of cutting-edge technology including AlertPoint and the SafeSchools Alert Tip line. We are always looking for new ways to protect our campuses. For more information on how we keep each other safe visit www.CobbShield.com."