Maryland teen handcuffed after school AI mistakes chip bag for gun

Police officers swarmed a 16-year-old high school student last week after an artificial intelligence (AI) gun detection system mistakenly flagged his bag of chips as a firearm, leaving officials and students shaken.

Student Taki Allen was waiting for his ride at Kenwood High School in Essex, Maryland, last Monday when he placed an empty bag of chips in his pocket, according to WMAR-2 News. Moments later, police officers suddenly surrounded him, ordering him to the ground and handcuffing him, the local station reported. 

Body camera footage released by the Baltimore Police Department shows responding officers realizing that the school’s AI security system, which monitors video in real time, had mistakenly flagged a bag of chips as a gun, triggering the law enforcement response.

“Police showed up, like eight cop cars, and then they all came out with guns pointed at me talking about getting on the ground. I was putting my hands up like, ‘What’s going on?’” Allen told WMAR-2.

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According to the video, police officers then reviewed the video flagged by the AI system, traced the item to a nearby trash can and discovered that the supposed weapon was just a bag of chips.

“I guess just the way you guys were eating chips… It picked it up as a gun,” a police officer told the students in the video. “AI’s not the best.”

The Oct. 20 incident has left students, city officials and school administrators asking who was responsible for the traumatic incident. 

During a conference call, Superintendent Dr. Myriam Rogers said the alert had initially been canceled, but the school principal had already begun coordinating a police response.

“The alert was cancelled by the BCPS (Baltimore County Public Schools) Safety Team. The principal, who did not see the cancellation, contacted our School Resource Officer,” Baltimore County told Fox News Digital on Sunday, referring to a BCPS statement. 

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Ultimately, the system functioned as intended, Rogers told WMAR-2. 

“The program is based on human verification and in this case the program did what it was supposed to do, which was to signal an alert and for humans to take a look to find out if there was cause for concern in that moment,” Rogers said.

Omnilert told Fox News Digital their system combines both artificial intelligence with human verification before any escalation.

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“Our system operated as designed — it identified a possible threat, elevated it for human review, and relied on authorized safety personnel for final determination,” the company told Fox News Digital, adding that the object was later confirmed not to be a firearm and the alert was marked as resolved.

“From that point forward, Omnilert had no further involvement in any subsequent actions or decisions related to this event.”

Allen, shaken by the incident, said he no longer feels safe going outside after football practice and that the incident should never have happened.

“I don’t think no chip bag should be mistaken for a gun at all,” Allen told WMAR-2. 

“I don’t want – don’t think I’m safe enough to go outside, especially eating a bag of chips or drinking something. I just stay inside until my ride comes,” Allen added.