On Oct. 27, 2025, a student of Kenwood High School in Baltimore, Maryland was arrested and searched after the school’s artificial intelligence security system mistook his bag of Doritos as a firearm.

The student, Taki Allen,  had just arrived at school after eating a bag of Doritos. He crumbled up the bag and put it in his pocket. At school, the AI security system had seen a small shine coming from his pocket. It had determined that it was a gun and alerted the authorities of the possible threat in the morning. 

After school, Allen was waiting after his basketball practice for his parents. According to Eyewitness News, about eight cop cars had shown up to the school, yelling at Allen to get on his knees and to put his hands up. “The first thing I was wondering was, was I about to die? I was just holding a Doritos bag- it was two hands and one finger out and they said it looked like a gun,” said Allen to West Bay Athletic League, as stated in Hollywood Unlocked. 

 After the police searched Allen, they determined that there was no weapon. Baltimore County Officials are now calling for a review of how Kenwood High School uses the AI gun detection system and why the teen ended up in handcuffs despite school safety officials quickly determining there was no weapon.

According to Zoombangla, the AI system is operated by a company called Omnialert. They had the AI installed last year due to the rise of school shootings. The company expressed regret over the error, they stressed that their technology is meant to flag potential threats for human review, not act autonomously. 

This shows that AI might target certain people depending on the history of previous incidents. Baltimore County Councilman Izzy Patoka issued a strong statement saying “no child should be accosted by police for eating chips.” This recent event has highlighted the challenges of using new technology for school safety and hopefully the mistakes can be fixed so an accident like this never happens again.