An AI-operated security system at a Baltimore school almost got a Black teen arrested for eating a bag of chips. On October 20, after football practice at Kenwood High School, 16-year-old Taki Allen was simply sitting with friends, munching on a bag of Doritos when the police came for him.
Eight police cars rushed to the scene, and officers pointed their guns at Allen, shouting strict orders. “They made me get on my knees, put my hands behind my back, and cuffed me,” he told WBAL. This naturally shocked Allen and his friends as eating chips after school could not be a crime that required police intervention.
“I didn’t know where they were going until they started walking toward me with guns, talking about, ‘Get on the ground,’ and I was like, ‘What?’” he recalled. After searching Allen and finding no weapon, police showed him the source of their alarm, a blurry surveillance image flagged by Omnilert, the school’s gun-detection AI. In the picture, Allen was holding a shiny Doritos bag. The way his fingers wrapped around the crumpled bag had triggered the AI’s alert.
“I was just holding a Doritos bag — it was two hands and one finger out, and they said it looked like a gun,” Allen explained to WBAL-TV. He was understandably shaken, saying, “It was mainly like, am I gonna die? Are they going to kill me?”
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Unfortunately, even after confirming there was no gun, the ordeal wasn’t over for Allen. He claims school leaders made no effort to reach out or apologize. “They didn’t apologize. They just told me it was protocol,” said Allen. “I was expecting at least somebody to talk to me about it.”
Allen’s grandfather, Lamont Davis, expressed his fears that the situation could have ended much worse. “God forbid, my grandson could be dead if he flinched or twitched,” Davis stated. The incident has left Allen hesitant to go outside alone. “He doesn’t want to come outside unless somebody is there to pick him up,” Davis added.
The AI software responsible, Omnilert, was installed in all Baltimore County schools in 2024, a move officials said was aimed at improving safety. Omnilert later said in a statement that the alert was a “false positive.” The system, they insisted, “functioned as intended: to prioritize safety and awareness through rapid human verification.”
Regardless of the intention of the AI software, the incident has been a traumatizing nightmare for Allen and his family. Talking about how he feels, Allen said, “I don’t feel like going out there anymore,” he said. “If I eat another bag of chips or drink something, I feel like they’re going to come again.”
It has been confirmed by both Baltimore County Schools and local police that no weapon was ever found. They also issued statements that explained what led to such an excessive response. Yet neither the school nor law enforcement apologized directly to Allen.
The incident not only highlights the perils of relying too much on AI technology but also shows how important human intervention and judgment in such cases are. Blindly following the AI security system could have led to a broader tragedy with unfortunate results, but thankfully, the police understood that it was a false alarm and did not physically harmed Allen.
