A new charter school in the south-metro Denver area plans to implement a new active shooter response system beginning in the fall that will use pepper spraying drones to take down the threat in the event of a school shooting.

John Adams Academy, a K-8 charter school, is set to open this fall in Douglas County. They announced in late July that they would be partnering with the Texas-based company called Campus Guardian Angel to implement a new active shooter response system.

The project is said to be privately funded and completed by the end of August. It will cost roughly $200,000 over the course of four years.

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One of the main aspects of their active shooter response service is they employ drones that can disperse pepper spray gel during an active threat. Once the drone identifies the threat, it fires the gel after a clear command of emergency is indicated.

The school announced that is part of a broader plan to create stronger safety protocols during active shooter threats, with Sarah Kiesewetter, the headmaster of John Adams Academy saying they want to be “the safest school in Colorado.”

The state remains at the center of many recent debates surrounding active shooter threats in schools. In May of 2019, the district faced a tragedy when STEM school in Highlands Ranch was the target of a mass shooting, leaving eight students injured and one dead. The student who died, Kendrick Castillo, was responsible for charging the shooter and stopped the threat before further violence continued.

Campus Guardian Angel’s founder, Justin Martson, said he was inspired by the Ukrainians fighting the war in eastern Europe to employ drones to eliminate a threat.

John McDonald, a former executive director of school safety for Douglas County’s neighboring school district, Jefferson County, said Martson’s inspiration is exactly what worries him. He argued efforts should be focused on prevention and the training and testing required could be far more extensive than they thought.

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Brett Titus, a former SWAT officer and CEO of Lifespot, has worked extensively with law enforcement, serving previously in the Air Force and as a SWAT officer for the city of Denver. He developed the app Lifespot in 2021, which is a unique and patented software that aligns the communication channels between school staff, law enforcement, and first responders during an active shooter threat.

The app identified seven main challenges that Titus claims other active shooter response services fail to adequately address: alert, notification, location, communication, injury status, and identification.

Titus said one of the biggest issues that arise during these high intensity situations is that communication with law enforcement, school staff, students, and first responders can become clogged.

“When Evergreen High School was shot up in 2025, it took over four minutes for the first batch of law enforcement to arrive at the scene,” Titus said. “When a threat is identified, the Lifespot app opens a screen with a ‘focus’ button. Within five seconds of clicking that button, law enforcement, first responders, dispatch, and other staff members with the app are notified of the emergency.”

They are the first service of their kind to alert all parties involved in the situation within one minute or less.

It then uses a geofencing mechanism to map out a 35-meter perimeter after the threat is first reported through the app. The location of each person in the building–including the staff and law enforcement personnel–are indicated by a user-specific key. Yellow triangles represent staff; blue circles represent law enforcement. A red dot indicates the threat, and their icon moves on the map in real time as new information is recorded in the app by other individuals.

Perhaps one of the most significant attributes of the app is the armed identification feature. Although the app shows all connected users on the live map, it also specifically notes which individuals are armed and where they’re located–including the shooter. This allows staff to know if an armed law enforcement officer is knocking at their door or if it’s the threat instead.

Another aspect of the app is that staff and teachers can report an injury with a simple button, which then alerts first responders. The shooter response team then has the option to select the “respond” button, which alerts other users that they are at the scene of the injury.

“These drones provide a real-world solution to a devastating yet critical issue,” Titus said.

He agreed the school’s implementation of this active shooter response system could be immensely beneficial, but would require sufficient training like McDonald implied. He contended that if companies like Campus Guardian Angel partnered with Lifespot, the future of active shooter response systems could become drastically more effective.