Baltimore County school gun detection system mistook a bag of chips for a weapon

Kristen Griffin

The Baltimore Banner

October 22, 2025

After football practice Monday night, Taki Allen chatted with friends outside Kenwood High School while munching on Cool Ranch Doritos. When he finished his snack he put the bag in his pocket. Minutes later, several police officers pulled up, pointed their guns at him and yelled for him to get on the ground, he said.

“Me?” he recalled thinking. “I was confused at the time.”

He put his hands in the air while following orders. Police handcuffed him, bent him over the hood of a police car, searched him and sat him on the curb, he said.

All they found was the Doritos bag, he said.

The false alarm was triggered by Baltimore County Public Schools’ AI-powered gun-detection system, Omnilert. Spokespersons for the company and the school district said the technology was working as intended to keep students and staff safe, and that they quickly realized no one was in danger on Monday.

So how did a student eating a snack end in a police search?

Baltimore County schools installed Omnilert in 2023. The technology searches image frames from 7,000 school cameras for people and the objects surrounding them. If it detects a gun, it alerts principals and safety assistants inside the building as well as security staff in the school system’s central office.

In this case, Omnilert’s monitoring team reviewed an image of “what appeared to be a firearm” on the person at Kenwood Monday night, said Blake Mitchell, a spokesperson for Omnilert.

“Because the image closely resembled a gun being held, it was verified and forwarded to the Baltimore County Public Schools (BCPS) safety team within seconds for their assessment and decision-making,” he wrote in an email.

They then sent the image, a “short contextual video” and the camera’s location to school officials. And “within moments” the incident was resolved, said Mitchell.

The “peculiarity of the lighting, the coloration on the bag and the way it was being held” was why it was mistaken for a gun, he said.

“Even as we look at it now, with full awareness that it’s not a gun, it still looks like to most people like one,” Mitchell added, noting that their privacy policy prevents them from sharing the image.

Allen said police showed him the image.

“In no sort of way did that look like a gun,” he said. “It looked like a bag of chips.”

Then a miscommunication among school officials led to the police search.

Kenwood Principal Kate Smith told parents that school administrators were alerted around 7 p.m. on Monday that a person on campus may have a weapon. When the school district’s security department saw the alert, they reviewed and canceled it after confirming no weapon was present.

However, Smith did not know the security office had cleared the incident, said Gboyinde Onijala, the school system spokesperson. So Smith followed protocol by alerting the Kenwood school resource officer, who alerted Baltimore County Police.

Allen’s grandfather, Lamont Davis, said he and his wife find it fortunate and unfortunate that the incident started and ended in a matter of seconds. He’s nonetheless upset that police pointed guns at his unarmed grandchild, who he described as an excellent student with natural charisma.

“There was no threat for eight guns to be pointed at a 16-year-old,” he said.

Baltimore County Police said officers “responded appropriately and proportionally based on the information provided at the time. The incident was safely resolved after it was determined there was no threat.”

Onijala said that the school system communicated with the public about how Omnilert works and warned them not to bring weapon lookalikes to campus. It’s just one of the tools the system uses to keep schools safe, she said.

“As a system, we’re always looking for ways to enhance students’ and staff safety,” said Onijala.