TAMPA, Fla. — A local entrepreneur has developed new software that has the potential to make schools safer in the event of an active shooter.

Using artificial intelligence, Jonathan Kretz, co-founder of S5 Alert, says his software enables existing security cameras to detect a person carrying a gun on school campuses.

“The basis of computer vision is to teach a machine something you can see with the human eye,” Kretz said.

Kretz said his company was having success with the AI technology in the private sector, but after the tragic school shooting in Uvalde last year, revamped some products to fit the school setting.

“My co-founder and I are both from Texas and he called me the morning after Uvalde and said we have to do something,” Kretz said, who explained the AI software taps into existing surveillance feeds and spots a gun just like a human could do when looking at the monitor.

“You can actually see on the screen when the actual detection of the gun is happening live in real time,” Kretz said.

If deemed a threat, the company quickly alerts the school. 

“So now they have actionable intelligence of what we saw, the object, the person of interest and then they also have the location of where the detection happened and what time it happened,” Kretz said, adding that the cameras will ultimately be able to show law enforcement a shooter’s path through the building.

Ideally, the software would help prevent a shooting from happening but, Kretz said it could also help law enforcement as they arrive at an active scene.

“Findings they show it’s only a 3 minute response time to these actual events,” said Kretz. “But it’s often 7-17 minutes of situational awareness to actually do any type of actual response.”

Kretz said that time could be cut down significantly if law enforcement arrived with information in hand, like the shooter’s exact whereabouts on campus. The company’s next step is to meet with school administrators throughout the region.