Real-World Response. Real Customer Experience.
When a potential firearm was detected near East Alton-Wood River High School, school administrators, the school resource officer, and the Wood River Police Department received immediate visual intelligence that enabled a rapid, coordinated response. During the incident, Omnilert AI Gun Detection provided responders with videos, images, location information, and real-time situational awareness to help them quickly assess the situation and respond with confidence. The firearm detected was ultimately determined to be a replica rather than a genuine firearm, but until the situation was resolved, responders treated it as a potential threat.
In this AI gun detection case study, you will hear directly from the principal, school resource officer, investigators, and chief of police as they recount how the incident unfolded, how they coordinated their response, and how access to real-time visual intelligence helped them:
- Respond faster with immediate video, images, and precise location information.
- Coordinate more effectively between school officials and local law enforcement.
- Improve situational awareness before officers arrived on scene.
- Make more informed decisions during a rapidly evolving incident.
- Strengthen their layered approach to protecting students, staff, and the community.
Featured Speakers
- Leigh Robinson – Principal, East Alton-Wood River
- Chris Johnson – School Resource Officer, East Alton-Wood River
- Brent Rombach – Detective Sergeant / Chief of Investigations, Wood River Police Department
- Brad Wells – Chief of Police, Wood River Police Department
Video Transcript:
Chris Johnson, School Resource Officer – East Alton Wood River: [00:00:00] As a police officer, going into the unknown is the hardest thing.
Brent Rombach, Detective SGT/Chief of Investigations Wood – River Police: Every second a person’s life is on the line, it makes a world of difference. If you know exactly what you’re looking for
Leigh Robinson, Principal – East Alton Wood River : I’ve lived in the Wood River community for 53 years, and four generations of, uh, my family have been graduates of this high school. You know, these buildings are over 100 years old. Our other one’s built in 1965. Well, two things nothing was built for back then was air conditioning and safety. You know, when you have an incident, that really changes your whole perspective on what school safety is and the layers of security that you want in place.
Chris Johnson, School Resource Officer – East Alton Wood River: It was just like another ordinary day. We were doing our normal duties as we always would.
Leigh Robinson, Principal – East Alton Wood River : And as I was walking through the courtyard, my alert went off.
Chris Johnson, School Resource Officer – East Alton Wood River: Omnilert automatically sent out a notification. It has the description, the location, the weapon that was used, and the video as it’s happening, and the police department gets the same information that I’m getting.
Brent Rombach, Detective SGT/Chief of Investigations Wood – River Police: From when the picture was sent out, I was [00:01:00] here within a minute and a half, and shortly after, I had four officers right behind me within 30 seconds. Once we arrived on scene, we learned that it was a fake gun. However, at the time, we don’t know it’s a fake gun, and we treat it as a serious situation because of the current times that we have.
So it’s best to have a zero tolerance for any type of toy gun, fake gun, Orbeez gun at every school, so that way you don’t have those problems come up. With this incident, that student was roughly 250 feet away from the school in the parking lot. Receiving that specific information eliminates that tunnel vision that we may get and helps resolve the situation faster.
Leigh Robinson, Principal – East Alton Wood River : I’ve grown up in this community my whole entire life, and I thought there would be, like, some stigma putting all the security in. When it comes down to it, it’s the peace of mind for parents, students, and my staff, that when they are here, this is a safe place to be.
Chris Johnson, School Resource Officer – East Alton Wood River: There’s 90 cameras on campus right now.
I can’t monitor all of them at the same time and still do all my other responsibilities. It’s a huge advantage to have the [00:02:00] Omnilert monitor 90 cameras all at once and then notify me on any critical incident where somebody has a weapon.
Leigh Robinson, Principal – East Alton Wood River : Originally, we only put that on a portion of our cameras, but we kinda stepped back and thought, “What if we chose wrong?”
So we made the decision to put the Omnilert on all 100-plus of our lenses so we’re not picking and choosing where something could happen.
Chris Johnson, School Resource Officer – East Alton Wood River: Prior to Columbine, ’cause that’s what changed everything, if there were shots fired or if there was an active incident, we would get here after the fact.
Brad Wells, Chief of Police – Wood River: And you gotta rely upon people who are are in a panic-type situation to let you know what’s actually happening.
Whereas with the Omnilert system, you’ve got the image, you’ve got the location, you know exactly where to respond.
Leigh Robinson, Principal – East Alton Wood River : We were able to determine, we were able to identify, and address, all within a few minutes.
Brent Rombach, Detective SGT/Chief of Investigations Wood – River Police: You never know what’s gonna happen at any given moment at a school. Now you have that measure in place to stop a situation from escalating.
Brad Wells, Chief of Police – Wood River: The officers are going into situations that people are [00:03:00] running from. The Omnilert system gives us the tools to do things the right way.
