June 4, 2026
Texas Startup Betting on Drones as the Answer to School Shootings
June 4, 2026
Texas Startup Betting on Drones as the Answer to School Shootings
Aaron Gifford
The Epoch Times
June 3, 2026
Three “guardian angel” drones emerge from a hallway wall box and fly the length of the school building in seconds. The would-be shooter is then distracted by sirens and disabled by pepper spray as police swarm in to make the arrest.
Welcome to the future of school safety, a sheriff’s deputy in Florida recently told a group of high school administrators and staff during a demonstration.
Six school districts in the Sunshine State and five in Georgia will have this American-made, nonlethal technology in place for the upcoming 2026-2027 academic year as part of a pilot program. Parents and school leaders in Texas, Arkansas, Alabama, Oklahoma, and Illinois have also inquired about the products and services.
Campus Guardian Angel, the Texas-based startup involved with these partnerships, hopes its drones will eventually become commonplace in schools across the nation. Company officials call their technology “the first active shooter suppression service.”
“We believe that every student deserves an education free from the fear of mass gun violence,” Justin Marston, the company founder and CEO, told The Epoch Times, adding that he’s unaware of any technology products on the market that are designed to confront armed perpetrators in school settings.
The drones are about the size of a shoebox and are stored in groups of three inside containers about the size of air conditioners. The number of boxes in a school varies depending on the size of the building.
They’re operated by experienced pilots in the company’s Austin, Texas, control center, who are looking at maps of the campus and live surveillance camera coverage. The system interfaces with alert systems that most schools use for informing authorities and other security services when an armed intruder is suspected.
The flying devices can confront the shooter within 15 seconds of activation. By contrast, a responding school resource officer has no context or knowledge of what’s happening for several minutes, Marston said.
He said the drones cruise at 30-50 mph inside buildings, and spring up to 100 mph outside, and reduce the risk of collateral damage to students and police officers. The drones are equipped to break windows.
They can also ram the perpetrator at high speed if that person does not surrender following the sirens or pepper spray.
“It’s like getting hit by a bat from a major league baseball player,” Marston said, adding that drone specialists from Ukraine provided insight for the product’s design.
Because of the drone’s small size, speed, and maneuverability, it’s also difficult, if not impossible, to shoot one of them, let alone a trio. When the product was tested, Marston said, about one of every 100 shots fired hit the device.
“It’s all over in two seconds,” he said. “You’ve got one, possibly two, shots.”
The operations center is also equipped to communicate with parents in real time.
As part of the pilot programs in Florida and Georgia, public school officials and police agencies will provide feedback to the company and state lawmakers. Legislatures will consider future competitive grants to serve more districts.
Marston said universities in Florida and Texas are conducting independent research on this technology. He has also worked with the U.S. Department of Justice, which has developed recommendations for American-made, nonlethal school safety tools and a grant program for those types of services in 2027 and beyond.
“When you see it demonstrated live, it becomes unbelievably obvious,” he said.
The Campus Guardian website cites a variety of national statistics and school safety consultants’ reports regarding the growing concerns over school safety. It says there have been 1,000 school shootings in the past three years, and the average police response time to school shootings is three minutes.
Marston likens this technology to building sprinkler systems following major fire events in the 1950s. People initially doubted their effectiveness and the need for such devices, but today sprinkler systems are a standard, required protection measure.
He believes drones like his will be standard for all public buildings and places of mass gatherings.
“There are evil people everywhere,” he said.
