Cops swarm and handcuff a student after an AI tool mistook his bag of Doritos for a weapon

"It was like eight cop cars that came pulling up for us. At first, I didn't know where they were going until they started walking toward me with guns, talking about, 'Get on the ground,' and I was like, 'What?'" Allen told local outlet WBAL-TV.

The student described the moment he was handcuffed by police: "They made me get on my knees, put my hands behind my back, and cuffed me. Then, they searched me and they figured out I had nothing.”

Allen said police then found the bag of Doritos he had been eating shortly before.

"I was just holding a Doritos bag — it was two hands and one finger out, and they said it looked like a gun," he said.

The school’s principal, Kate Smith, said in a letter to parents school administrators had received an alert that someone on school property may have had a weapon.

“I contacted our school resource officer (SRO) and reported the matter to him, and he contacted the local precinct for additional support,” the principal said.

The Baltimore County Police Department told WBAL-TV officers responded to a report of “a suspicious person with a weapon,” and after the person was searched, “it was determined the subject was not in possession of any weapons.”

"Nobody wants this to happen to their child,” Allen's grandfather, Lamont Davis, told the outlet.

The school’s weapon detection system is from Omnilert, an AI gun detection and emergency response technology company. The system uses school cameras to identify possible weapons and send alerts to authorities, according to WBAL-TV.

An Omnilert spokesperson said the image that was sent to their team Monday night closely resembled a gun.

"It was verified and forwarded within seconds to Baltimore County Public Schools' safety team for their assessment,” the spokesperson told CBS News Baltimore. "Within moments, the event was marked as resolved in our system.

“Omnilert's involvement concluded at that point, and the system operated as designed — detecting a possible threat, routing it for human review, and ensuring rapid, informed decision-making."

The Independent has reached out to Omnilert for further comment.

“We understand how upsetting this was for the individual that was searched as well as the other students who witnessed the incident,” Smith said. “Our counselors will provide direct support to the students who were involved in this incident and are also available to speak with any student who may need support.”

Local officials are calling for Baltimore County Public Schools Superintendent Myriam Rogers and police to review the Omnilert system.

"Thank God it was not worse," Baltimore County councilman Julian Jones told CBS News Baltimore. "How did it come to be that we had police officers with guns drawn approaching a kid because of a bag of Doritos?"

Rogers has defended the AI gun detection system, telling the public, "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 at that moment.”

Omnilert made the news in January after its system failed to detect the gun used in a shooting at Antioch High School in Nashville that left a 16-year-old girl dead and another injured, according to officials.

The issue had to do with “the shooter's location in proximity to the cameras, it wasn't close enough to get an accurate read and to activate that alarm,” Metro Nashville Public Schools spokesperson Sean Braisted said at the time, as reported by NBC News.