Most active shooter events are over in less than five minutes. Once the first shot is fired there will likely be mass casualties. For decades we have suffered through needless tragedies due to ‘not connecting the dots’ and reactive response. In this article I will describe a breakthrough real-time AI threat detection integration between Scylla.ai and Alertus.com that can proactively predict, mitigate or prevent many life-threatening types of security and COVID risks.
Here are a few, of thousands of threat events, where this next-gen solution could have made a difference:
- On February 14, 2019 at 2:19 pm a person known to authorities approached a Parkland FL school carrying an AR-15 assault rifle. No one ‘connected the dots’ and no one stopped him. He took his weapon out and entered the school at 2:21pm. Again no one stopped him. At 2:28 pm (5 minutes later) 17 people were already dead and seventeen wounded. At 2:32pm police enter the school. Real time threat detection, lockdown and communication could have made a difference.
- On Oct 1, 2017 a ‘guest’ checked into the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, NV carrying multiple high-power assault weapons. He traveled up to his room. No questions asked. Between 10:05 and 10:15 pm, he fired over 1,000 rounds of ammunition from his 32nd-floor room on 22,000 concert-goers below. Within 10 minutes he killed 59 people and wounded 411, with crowd panic bringing total injuries to 867. Real time threat detection and communication could have made a difference.
- On April 20, 2021 a ‘troubled’ employee that had issues with co-workers, a long arrest record and had threatened employees walked into a crowded supermarket on Long Island NY with a deadly weapon. He focused on killing management, although he could have randomly shot anyone within range. The store manager was killed and 2 other employees injured. Real time threat detection, lockdown and communication could have made a difference.
- On April 15, 2021 a mass shooting occurred at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis, Indiana where 4,000 employees work. The facility has security turnstiles and metal detectors. According to police, the assailant, a former fired FedEx employee, exposed at least 1 of his 2 rifles and began shooting at employees in the parking lot and then entered the building. The shooting took less than 4 minutes. There were 8 fatalities, plus the assailant. Four other people were shot and taken to the hospital. Real time 24×7 CAMERA VISION threat detection, lockdown and communication could have made a difference.
In each of the crisis events described above the organizations impacted had security cameras. Unfortunately, most camera systems are underutilized and do not monitor for real-time threats. 99% of the time they are used to look-back after an event rather than identifying proactively future critical events. Imagine how many security guards you would need to manually monitor hundreds or thousands of cameras in real-time.
Fortunately next-gen technology and security best practices can be a savior in many instances. Below I will describe the Scylla — Alertus life-saving real-time threat detection and communication integration which can make a difference.
SCYLLA
Scylla is a real-time physical threat detection solution. It utilizes AI and computer vision to detect objects, actions, and behavior anomalies..
Real-time detection can make the difference between life and death. Watch this short video to see how Scylla Gun Detection System works.
The system utilizes artificial intelligence to identify threats and machine learning to continually improve. Uniquely, it also uses real-time behavioral analytics to instantly detect fights and other aggressive types of behavior — before they escalate!
Scylla’s technology can detect guns and knives with accuracy using standard cameras you may already own. With the impressive 0.1 false positive rate per day per camera, Scylla Gun Detection System is one of the most accurate and sensitive AI technologies used for physical threat detection
In addition, drones and robots can be used to monitor wide-areas, warehouses, factories and all sorts of office environments. License plate tracking is also very effective to track assailants on the move.
Imagine Scylla monitoring tens, hundreds or thousands of your cameras 24×7 for threats in real time, sending out communication in seconds… and never taking a coffee break. That is what the Scylla — Alertus real time threat detection integration does.
Scylla has an impressive and varied clientele including Daimler, CCSD, USC Verdugo Hills, Major League Baseball, Chicago Cubs, Oman International Airport, and Legrand facilities, among others.
The major league sports team uses Scylla technology to identify people that try to enter their stadium illegally, such as by jumping a fence to create destruction or steal.
In that use-case Scylla can use Object Tracking, Person Search and/or Face Recognition features. An important benefit of person search system is that it’s really useful in situations when the system cannot be fed with up-to-date quality images to enable face recognition technology or in cases when it’s against privacy and security protocols.
In the use-case of COVID you can identify people wearing masks or not wearing them and alert security of compliance issues. Or for population density awareness you can identify the total number of people in a building, airport or school in the face of compliance rule,s thus mitigating possible health risks.
Importantly, Scylla can be integrated with mass notification tools to alert large groups of people using two-way SMS, email, phone and push notifications. The integration in this article describes Alertus which provides unique and potentially life-saving ways to reach people.
ALERTUS
Alertus is the Communication Portion of this End-to-End Real-Time Threat Detection System
Alertus has unique and valuable endpoints to notify-people that may be in harms way. For example, Alertus can instantly trigger feature-rich alerts to desktop pop-ups, wall beacons, alarms, IP speakers, digital signage and VOIP phones instantaneously.
All of these endpoints are perfect for office communication. Alertus wall beacons that include scrolling text plus audible sirens and text-to-speech, and digital signage are uniquely valuable for factories, warehouses and any dangerous noisy environment where mobile devices may not be permitted for safety reasons or are ineffective because of noise.
Scylla and Alertus can lock down room doors and hallways in real-time to prevent shooters from gaining entry. The active shooter events described above would have benefitted from isolating the assailant away from people.
Alertus is flexible and can use IP ranges and/or Active Directory to manage large groups of users. Alertus can easily alert tens of thousands of people at desktops or in open spaces.
Fast Alert Delivery — The Magic of an API
The Scylla — Alertus integration uses an application programming interface (API) to connect each solution. This minimizes the time from threat detection to delivery of an alert to recipients. There are other slower ways to build integrations using transport methods such as email ingestion that are less desirable. Remember, we are focused on preventing or mitigating the impact of extremely time sensitive events. Even a short delay in delivering information can be the difference between safety, serious harm or possibly death.
When Scylla detects a threat it automatically sends an alert to Alertus, which then alerts groups of people using the unique endpoints I described above. The entire end-to-end communication is measured in seconds, not minutes.
Next Steps to Real-Time Threat Detection
1 – I recommend you demo the impressive capabilities Scylla offers. You can either contact them to organize a demo or have it on your laptop for their Cloud solutions, either real-time or forensically, depending on the particular product in mind.
2 – If you want to understand the threat detection capabilities of the Scylla AI Threat detection I recommend this detailed Scylla whitepaper.
3 – There are multiple ways to implement the Scylla — Alertus real time threat detection solution in your environment. It is important to speak to the experts from Scylla and Alertus to design an implementation that achieves your requirements.
If you would like to learn more please contact me. marty@ultimatebusinesscontinuity.com
Marty Fox is a Critical Solutions Expert Advisor and is the Director Critical Technology Solutions for a $20 billion company. He publishes the Critical Solutions Advisor newsletter.
Marty has successfully helped organizations predict, prevent, mitigate, and respond in real-time to critical threats using tools and technologies for improved safety, security, compliance, risk and continuity of operations.