A gunman opened fire at Apalachee High School in Barrow County, Georgia, on Wednesday morning and killed four people, including two students and two teachers.
Authorities were first notified of an active incident when Apalachee High School faculty and staff deployed Centegix CrisisAlert ID technology, equipped with an unobtrusive panic button, to alert officials by pressing down on the badge.
"All of our teachers are armed with a form of an ID called Centegix," Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith told reporters during a Wednesday evening press conference.
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"Centegix alarms us and alerts the law enforcement office after buttons are pressed on an ID, and it alerts us that there is an active situation at the school for whatever reason."
Centegix, a cloud-based wearable safety technology company, enables rapid notification of emergency situations and response by local law enforcement.
The safety solutions company, "was founded on the idea that technology can create safer, more secure environments. Our safety solution uses market-defining technology that delivers the functionality, connectivity, and accessibility needed to stand up to real-world emergencies," according to the brand's website.
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Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said during a press conference Wednesday night, "The protocols at this school and this system activated today prevented this from being a much larger tragedy than what we had here today."
The alert system provided to educators and other school staff not only discreetly communicates to law enforcement of an emergency, but also indicates to police the precise locations of threats, with the ability to update floor plans as needed.
The campus-wide safety platform also offers school personnel and law enforcement the option to quickly identify building visitors and safety assets, including AED, first aid kits and fire alarms.
Additionally, audiovisuals are distributed to caution bystanders about emergency situations.
Reunification of students and staff following evacuations and custody checks for parents during emergency pickups are software implementations also provided by Centegix.
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"We designed a private, managed network in conjunction with software-as-a-service cloud solutions that provide multi-layer safety protection with 100% grounds coverage and room-level location," reads a blurb from Brent Cobb, CEO of Centegix, on the company's website. "That is something that can’t be done in the market today."
Within minutes, law enforcement arrived at the scene of the Apalachee High School shooting, which included two school resource officers assigned to the campus, according to Hosey.
Officials identified the four victims on Wednesday as Mason Schermerhorn, 14, and Christian Angulo, 14, and teachers Richard Aspinwall and Christina Irmie.
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The shooter, Colt Gray, 14, was taken into custody and will be charged with murder and prosecuted as an adult, according to Hosey.
Hosey said that, once law enforcement encountered the subject, he immediately surrendered.
