Prince George’s County schools outline metal detectors, AI camera upgrades for Bowie cluster

Gary Cunningham, director of safety and security for the Prince George’s County Public School System, told the Bowie City Council on April 21 that the district has installed metal detectors at high schools and some middle schools and is moving to upgrade camera systems to be ‘‘AI capable.’’

Cunningham said the district oversees about 198 buildings, 60,000 employees and 130,000 students. He described metal detectors and staff training as part of a strategy that has reduced firearms and other weapons entering schools, and said Bowie High School and the annex have security officers and are scheduled for camera upgrades.

‘‘The systems work, when people do what they’re supposed to do,’’ Cunningham said, describing an instance last year when staff used cameras to observe and apprehend a student attempting to enter a Bowie-area school with a firearm.

Cunningham said the district is standardizing cameras to allow for forensic tools such as license-plate readers and, where policies permit, facial-tracking for investigations. He said the district will equip new and upgraded schools with cameras capable of these functions but must also upgrade software and hardware in older buildings. ‘‘Bowie High School is on our list, to be upgraded,’’ he said.

Council members asked about ‘‘ghost guns,’’ camera coverage beyond building doors, retention of video footage, card-access systems and training for elementary school staff. Cunningham said polymer ‘‘ghost’’ guns have been recovered ‘‘one or two’’ times in recent years and that metal detectors have reduced firearms overall; he said smaller plastic weapons are less reliably detected depending on sensitivity settings. He said video retention is 30 days and that license-plate or other analytic capabilities exist in the system but would require policy decisions before being turned on.

On elementary schools, Cunningham said the system requires drills and that the Maryland Center for School Safety requires lockdown and other emergency drills. He said elementary schools do not have dedicated security staff; the district assigns a lead security supervisor for each cluster who supports the elementary schools that feed a particular high school. ‘‘We’re looking very hard at the elementary schools’’ for different technology and staffing solutions, he said.

Council members and attendees pressed for practical next steps the city might take. Cunningham said the Bowie Police Department ‘‘work[s] very well with us’’ and that the district shares intelligence about students charged with firearms offenses outside school when permitted by law. He described the relationship between county school security and local law enforcement as active during incidents and drills.

The county director said some upgrades may be timed to vendor availability and other projects; council members requested follow-up details about timelines, costs and which camera and access capabilities would be enabled at Bowie High and the annex.

The presentation proceeded into a council question-and-answer period in which parents, school employees and council members raised mental-health and staffing concerns and asked about anonymous tip lines and social-media monitoring; Cunningham said the district and its partners use multiple tip lines and that some law-enforcement partners scrape social media for threat information.