Harrison County schools implementing weapon detectors

BRIDGEPORT, W.Va (WDTV) - Harrison County schools can now get an added level of protection as the new school year kicks off. It’s thanks to a new mobile security system.

5′s John Blashke shows us how it works.

Harrison County schools will now be able to implement state-of-the-art technology to keep schools safe.

Bridgeport High School gave a demonstration Tuesday of the counties’ new metal detectors.

Safety Director Jason Snider says the $15,000 device can be fine tuned to pick out weapons like guns and knives, but ignore other metal items.

“What makes these machines unique from other machines is that they can toned in just for what we call a weapon detector,” said Snider. “We can set the machine to go off on high density metals such as a weapon -- we can also tone it back to go off on just about anything, a paper clip if we had to.”

Snider says the county purchased a few of these devices and will be implementing them in schools on an “as needed” basis until they can buy more.

Bridgeport High Resource Officer Jamie Hamrick says she’s grateful schools can take a more active approach now when they receive tips.

“We’ve had some unfounded online threats before, fortunately they did not come to anything, but I will tell you it would’ve been nice to have these at our disposal to be able to use them the next day -- its an added layer of security that we will now be able to use,” said Hamrick.

Aside from being able to use these scanners on a regular basis -- Lincoln High Resource Officer Cody Shingleton says they’ll be even more useful at large events like football games and school dances.

“We get a lot of good tips on problems that may occur, but when you get events like that with different families from different areas it puts us in a bit of a disadvantage of not knowing some of the people not in our community in those large events so this is going to be a great tool,” said Shingleton.

Snider says they’ll be testing this device at various schools in these first few weeks back to class.

Keeping you connected in Harrison County John Blashke 5 news.

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