{"id":38843,"date":"2025-11-06T23:52:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T23:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/38843\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T23:52:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T23:52:07","slug":"houston-parent-leads-push-to-equip-spring-branch-isd-campuses-with-15%e2%80%91second-response-drones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/38843\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston parent leads push to equip Spring Branch ISD campuses with 15\u2011second response drones"},"content":{"rendered":"

HOUSTON \u2013 A Houston mom formed a committee to try to raise the funds needed to bring drone-protection technology to Memorial and Spring Woods high schools in Spring Branch ISD. Estela Cockrell believes Austin-based Campus Guardian Angel has technology that can bring an added layer of safety to school campuses.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just blown away by their technology and what they can do,\u201d said Cockrell. <\/p>\n

The company that would provide the technology is Austin-based Campus Guardian Angel. <\/a> The company provides drone technology that can respond to a school shooter in 15-seconds.<\/p>\n

Bill King, a retired SEAL and company co-founder, said the idea came from seeing how smaller, tactical drones are being used in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\u201cReally noticing how effective small drones are against people with guns, even when they know the drone is coming,\u201d said King said during a demonstration at Texas Southern University in August.<\/p>\n

King said the company makes a digital map of a campus, has access to a school\u2019s camera system and is direct contact with law enforcement. Each campus is then constantly monitored from the company\u2019s headquarters.<\/p>\n

If a threat is detected, then pilots at the company\u2019s headquarters deploy the drones, which are equipped with glass break technology to punch through windows. Each drone is also equipped with a siren, strobe lights, pepper balls and smoke bombs to disorient an attacker until police arrive.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can hit you with (a drone) at 60, 70 miles an hour because our pilots are that good,\u201d said King.<\/p>\n

In addition to Cockrell\u2019s efforts, Spring Branch ISD police chief Larry Baimbridge also supports bringing this program to the district. He said Memorial and Spring Woods were chosen as potential starting points because they are large campuses with exterior hallways and disconnected buildings.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven having two officers on campus, if something were to happen on one side, getting to the other side where the threat was occurring would take minutes,” said Baimbridge. \u201cHaving a technology like this cuts those minutes down to seconds.”<\/p>\n

Baimbridge, a retired HPD officer with an extensive background in SWAT, also points to the 2018 mass shooting at Santa Fe high school. Santa Fe ISD police officer John Barnes was critically wounded when he was ambushed by the shooter while trying to round a corner.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the beauties of this technology is it gives the officers basically a partner, if you will. It gives them a backup or the ability to see around corners, see in the doorways,” said Baimbridge. <\/p>\n

Cockrell has formed a 12-person committee with the goal of raising $500,000. You can read more about that effort here.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the startup cost to really get the equipment, and then once we\u2019re going forward, we\u2019re looking at $60,000- $70,000 a school,” said Cockrell. \u201cI want our kids to be able to go to school, I want teachers to be to be be able teach and have the freedom to know that they are protected,\u201d <\/p>\n

Cockrell said she wants to catch the attention of Gov. Greg Abbott, with the hope of eventually seeing state funds used for technology. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to show the governor that we want to be first and best in class and really make this something replicable around the state and country,” said Cockrell.<\/p>\n

Boerne ISD will be the first Texas school district to implement the Campus Guardian Angel system later this year as part of a pilot program. The state of Florida has also dedicated funds to run a test of the program in three school districts. <\/p>\n

2 Investigates reached out to the Governor\u2019s Office for a comment, but has not yet received a response. <\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2013 A Houston mom formed a committee to try to raise the funds needed to bring drone-protection…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[24058,6073,9405,56,58,57,5778,24056,24055,20929,24057,3621],"class_list":{"0":"post-38843","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-campus-guardian-angel","9":"tag-drone","10":"tag-fundraiser","11":"tag-houston","12":"tag-houston-headlines","13":"tag-houston-news","14":"tag-investigates","15":"tag-memorial-high-school","16":"tag-school-shooting","17":"tag-spring-branch-isd","18":"tag-spring-woods-high-school","19":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}