Evolv Technologies sold AI-powered weapons detection scanners to over 800 schools across 40 states. The company, backed by Bill Gates and Peyton Manning, promised its systems could identify concealed weapons using artificial intelligence and sensor fusion. The FTC disagreed.

In November 2024, the Federal Trade Commission settled with Evolv for making deceptive claims about the system's ability to detect weapons. The agency found the company had overstated what the technology could do.

Two months later, on January 22, 2025, a student walked through an Evolv scanner at Antioch High School in Nashville carrying a handgun. The system did not detect it. The gun was used in a fatal shooting that day.

False alarm rates at some schools hit 60%. Teachers reported the scanners flagging clarinets, bags of chips, and water bottles as potential weapons. Every false alarm pulls a staff member away from their actual job to investigate nothing.

The contracts are not small. Prince William County, Virginia signed a $10.6 million, four-year deal with Evolv. Fairfax County spent $4.2 million on a competing system from CEIA USA. After the Antioch shooting, Nashville's school board still considered a $5 million expansion of Evolv systems to all high schools.

The pattern is familiar in school safety procurement. A tragedy creates urgency. Vendors market aggressively. Districts buy fast under political pressure. And the technology enters buildings before anyone has independently verified whether it works.

Independent testing of the Evolv system by the BBC found it failed to detect large knives in 42 out of 24 walk-throughs. A security consultant hired by the company's own customer found similar results. Despite this, as of February 2026, Evolv remains installed in hundreds of schools across the country.

The question is not whether schools should invest in security. It's whether they're spending millions on a product that creates the appearance of safety without delivering it.

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