California megachurch taps AI-based system for weapons detection, campus security

A Southern California megachurch will use artificial intelligence to detect firearms brought to the worship center with the goal of spotting an unauthorized weapon before it can be used and giving security personnel a chance to respond.

Valley Baptist Church, an 8,000-member congregation in Bakersfield, will deploy an AI system by ZeroEyes to monitor hundreds of video cameras at its two main campuses in the area, church safety director Matt Montana said. Two smaller facilities will not have the system, he added.

ZeroEyes says its system scans a facility’s video camera feeds for illegally brandished weapons. When such an item is detected, images are shared with human specialists at the firm’s monitoring centers. If they verify the threat, the specialists alert officials at the church and law enforcement. A notification can happen as quickly as three to five seconds after detection, the company says.

The company, founded by former military and other specialized personnel, markets its service to schools and other large institutions, said co-founder and chief revenue officer Sam Alaimo.

“We were founded specifically for K through 12 [schools] in 2018,” said Mr. Alaimo, a former Navy SEAL. “We wanted to keep kids safe, and that was our sole focus that we built the algorithm.”

The firm soon discovered that its AI system had uses beyond school campuses, he added.

“We found that what made us good in one vertical [area] made us better in all the others. Right now, we have quite a few clients across government, commercial and education, and the nonprofit space, and we’re going to keep doing that,” Mr. Alaimo said.

Employing the company’s capabilities at a church — particularly a large religious campus such as Valley Baptist — seems timely.

Religion-related incidents accounted for 14.1% of hate crimes reported in 2021, the third-highest motivation for such incidents, the FBI said. Race/ethnicity/ancestry accounted for 64.5% of hate crimes that year, while sexual orientation was cited in 15.9% of such cases.

“The old model, with a wall full of 300 security cameras and two individuals watching them, doesn’t work,” Mr. Alaimo said. “Because people blink and they lose attention, and they look at their phones and they go to the bathroom and they get tired.”

“AI is never blinking, the ‘eye’ is never stopping,” he said. “It’s always monitoring 24/7/365, so when a gun is present, it doesn’t matter if it’s one camera, or 1 million cameras, we will get that alert.”

The client site is notified “when it’s a true positive, when it’s actually a gun that needs to be taken seriously,” he said.

Mr. Montana, a former law enforcement officer who joined the church staff three years ago, said the ZeroEyes system is “close to what government entities have to try to prevent violence.”

The church official said Valley Baptist also has “a licensed preschool on campus with just short of 300 children on campus Monday through Friday, anywhere from about six o’clock in the morning to six o’clock in the evening,” which increases the value of the ZeroEyes system.

The Valley Baptist safety director said the church is just beginning its contract with the firm.

ZeroEyes charges between $20 and $50 per year to monitor each camera stream at a location, with a typical installation consisting of 100 to 150 cameras, Mr. Alaimo said.

Critics have expressed general concerns about individual privacy with AI-based security systems. A ZeroEyes spokesperson said the firm’s product does not use any facial recognition software and focuses solely on identifying suspect items such as a brandished firearm.