Overview
- Multiple school districts in Florida, Georgia and Colorado have begun installing or preparing pilot systems, with reporting Thursday naming specific sites including a Florida high school planning 39 drones.
- The systems, sold by Mithril Defense under the Campus Guardian Angel brand, are remotely piloted from Austin and are marketed to fly at high speed, deploy pepper gel, sound sirens, flash strobes, break windows and ram targets.
- Manufacturers and company leaders say the drones are meant to distract or disable shooters and buy time for police, but the systems have never been tested in a real active‑shooter incident and lack independent performance validation.
- State and local funding is underwriting early rollouts, including about $557,000 in Florida and a $500,000 pilot approved in Georgia, with companies proposing dozens of docked drones per campus.
- Safety advocates, survivors and experts warn about the risk of misidentification, injury, poor coordination with on‑site staff and law enforcement, unclear training and liability rules, and the danger that dollars for hardware will reduce spending on prevention and mental‑health services.