By The Daily Caller (U.S.) | Created at 2026-07-30 02:26:52 | Updated at 2026-08-03 06:21:58
4 days ago
A defense company will begin arming schools with drones to combat active shooters at the beginning of this academic year.
Multiple schools in Colorado, Florida and Georgia will be the first to adopt Mithril Defense drones as part of their security programs, according to CBS News. Mithril Defense, founded in 2023 by a U.S. veteran, designs small, non-lethal drones for security in schools, shipping, oil and gas, and defense, according to its LinkedIn page.
Its school drones, known as Campus Guardian Angels, can zoom at speeds of 50 miles per hour indoors and 100 miles per hour outside, according to the website. The drones are equipped with pepper spray, strobe lights, sirens and glass-breaking lances. The company aims for drones to reach active shooters in 15 seconds. As a last resort, they can ram an individual at speeds of 60 miles per hour. (RELATED: New York School District Plans To Bring Humanoid Teacher Robot Into The Classroom)
“These are the first schools we’re deploying into now,” Mithril CEO Justin Marston told CBS News. “We think every school should have some kind of active-shooter suppression system, and five years from now, you wouldn’t send your kids to a school that doesn’t have one.”
Boxes of six drones will sit on charging pads at multiple different locations in schools, ready to be flown remotely by a team of drone pilots in Austin, Texas. Members of this team use “digital twins” of the schools to navigate the drones.
Campus Guardian Angels will aim to “distract, disorient, confront, degrade, and incapacitate a shooter,” providing critical time for law enforcement to arrive at the scene and protecting the lives of police officers, another press release added.
— Campus Guardian Angel (@cga_drones) March 20, 2026“An officer should never have to risk their life doing something that a drone can do, because we don’t care if the drone gets shot. It’s a lump of plastic,” Marston told CBS. “We just jump in with the next one. But an officer’s life is irreplaceable.”
Three Florida school districts announced in November 2025 that they would participate in the drone pilot program, according to a press release from the Florida Department of Education. Florida has set aside about $557,000 to implement the program, according to Gadget Review.
The Georgia State Board of Education approved five school districts to pilot the drone programs in June, according to a Campus Guardian Angel press release. The schools will use $550,000 set aside by the Georgia General Assembly to pay for the drones.
John Adams Academy Douglas County, a public, tuition-free classical charter school in Colorado, has joined the Florida and Georgia schools in agreeing to pilot the system, according to a July Campus Guardian Angels press release.
These drones are part of growing efforts to improve school security sparked by mass school shootings. Campus Guardian Angel’s website cited 1,000 school shootings in the past three years — ten times more than a decade ago, according to their reporting — with 800 individuals killed or wounded during those incidents.
But some parents are pushing back, arguing that adding drones will not help security.
“They are operated remotely from Texas. These are our tender babies, and they are now going to have to be in a place where there are drones flying around,” parent Kim Carroll said, according to ABC7News.
Parent Jennifer Iversen expressed concerns to CBS Colorado about the drone’s pepper spray capabilities earlier in the month.
“What about a drone spewing these pellets and hurting a kid?” Iversen asked. “It brings in so many ethical and legal issues that I just think it’s a really bad idea.”
“This company has the drones in other schools, but they don’t have any data about their use,” parent Julie Ort told the outlet. “I think that that technology is unproven, and I think school security is really important, and we shouldn’t be using our kids as test sites.”
