Mobile, al. (Wala) – City officials said on Tuesday that they were looking for technological improvements to better detect people for firearms during entertainment events.
Mobile mayor Sandy Stimpson said on Monday that the city from now require that metal detectors be used For all entertainment events in places belonging to the city. It was not done Sunday in a dance recital where a shooter pulled two people.
The disadvantage of metal detectors is that they can be bulky and slow, especially with large crowds. The screening of each person takes time.
James Barber, the mayor’s chief of staff, said the city was looking for systems that use artificial intelligence more effectively to identify hidden pistols and knives.
“The old metal detector systems had a lot of false, you know, readings,” he said after Tuesday’s municipal council meeting. “And it was really slow, probably, because you look at some of the doors coming here. Move large amounts of people is difficult to detect them properly. But there is artificial intelligence and new technologies that we are looking at where we can cross people without having to search for all backpacks and empty the pockets of everyone.”
The Mobile County Public School School already uses one of these systems, manufactured by a company called EVOLV. Installed in some schools last year, it can filter thousands of people per hour.
“I am on the phone with the school system and resource agents to see how effective this system is,” said Barber. “There is also a system in the fairground that they use to be able to effectively project large quantities of people, and we therefore obtain very good criticisms on this subject.”
Politics before Sunay was that Oak View Group, who manages the Sangeger Theater and the Arthur Outlaw Mobile Con-Cam Center, decided a basis on a case-by-case basis if metal detectors were necessary.
“We understand that even as something as simple as a little girl’s dance recital could become violent,” he said. “It’s quite obvious. No one would have planned it, but it happened.”
The shooting sparked a broader discussion on the laws on firearms. But Barber said that he was not certain more stringent laws on firearms would have prevented Sunday violence.
“The only way I think Sanger could have been prevented is to have prevented this weapon from entering this place,” he said.
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