The Jefferson County Board of Education is moving forward with a plan to put a weapon detection system in high school and middle schools.

The system uses artificial intelligence to find concealed weapons.

Last night, board members and the community weighed in on the $17 million plan.

Our children do not feel safe.

Gun violence is everywhere and those in power have done nothing to stop the flow of guns nor address the root causes of violence.

Instead, we're making our schools into fortresses with an AI weapons detection system and police.

LAPD is untrustworthy in this community.

We have a DOJ with 90 pages that talk about how they treat citizens, and we do not want that in the schools.

And though the Evolv lobbyists insist that this system will not profile or discriminate, lmpd or other law enforcement will be called in every time a gun is suspected.

And we know that they do.

Some kids are bearing guns in schools because they are afraid and we're going to criminalize their fear.

And that is completely unacceptable.

We do not want children criminal ized.

We do not want children prosecuted.

We want children helped.

I really want students to be able to come to school and learn, not be worried about whether you're going to get shot.

It's not a solution.

It's not perfect.

But we need to work together to try to get to perfect.

In my mind, there is no excuse for bringing a firearm on school property.

We've had 26 guns this year.

If we don't put something in place to help us screen these out, it will just increase.

Doing nothing to me is not an option.

I'm just not sure what rational basis we have based upon the information that we've currently been given to have any faith or confidence that this will actually improve safety.

You know, if we're going to spend a large sum of money on this, it seems like we should have at least a modicum of evidence that it will do what we hope it will do and we just don't.

We have seen this weapons detection in person.

I've seen it, the teams seen it.

I think it can be effective.

And I think if this is something that is not effective, we can take away.

We have to be respectful of our staff, our students.

And I have heard people say, do something.

I have heard mothers, fathers, grandparents say, I want my children to be safe.

And I've heard the same from our staff.

So this may not be the end all, be all.

It may not be the best.

But to do nothing.

I'm worried about this.

Jefferson County Public Schools is demonstrating the equipment for board members and the media tomorrow at Butler High School.

We'll be there and we'll bring you a report about that on Friday.