Pittsford, New York St. John Fisher College was placed on lockdown last week after artificial intelligence (AI) software in the college's video surveillance system misidentified a prop gun being used during a play rehearsal as a real gun.
The technology triggered an emergency alert at 5:54 p.m. Tuesday, sending Monroe County Sheriff's Office and campus security to Kearney Hall Auditorium, the Democrat & Chronicle reported. Authorities searched Kearney Hall's Cleary Family Auditorium and found two prop guns. A lockdown was initiated, but was lifted around 6:09 p.m. after it was discovered the guns were not real.
A statement issued by St. John Fisher High School principal Gerald Rooney about the incident included an outline of the school's emergency notification and communications mechanism.
“The University uses the RAVE alert system to notify members of the campus community of emergency messages and updates,” the statement reads. “As part of new FCC requirements regarding emergency and non-emergency messages, the University is now required to include the terms Emergency, Emergency, and Critical in alert messages.”
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The statement goes on to say that examples of scenarios that may require a RAVE alert using these terms include:
- emergency: Water pipe burst, accidents that could disrupt campus access, power outages
- emergency: Closed due to bad weather, small fire on campus
- Deadly: Imminent threat of lockdown or shelter-in-place of a campus, building, or entire campus
“This was not a mass shooting,” Looney said, “and if it was, the RAVE Alert would have told us so.”
