AI-powered weapons scanners deployed in the subway this summer led to the recovery of zero guns, with civil rights advocates declaring the project helmed by Mayor Eric Adams “objectively a failure.”
Police deployed the metal detectors, manufactured by Evolv, to 20 subway stations over an unspecified 30-day period and conducted more than 2,700 scans. An NYPD spokesperson said Thursday that the scanners identified 12 knives, but failed to mention recovering any firearms.
Meanwhile, the NYPD spokesperson noted, the scanners returned false positive notifications on 118 occasions. It’s not clear whether these false detections were about knives or firearms.
“Not only did the Evolv scanners detect zero firearms, but they triggered 118 false alarms, compromising the safety of subway riders,” the Legal Aid Society wrote in a statement responding to reports about the scanner pilot. “This is objectively a failure, no matter how hard City Hall tries to spin this data.”
Pressed for more specific comment, the NYPD said that no shootings had occurred at the pilot stations and said the department is “still evaluating the outcome of the pilot” and may engage other scanner contractors in the future.
A spokesperson for the mayor’s office echoed that sentiment, arguing the scanners served as a deterrent to would-be criminals from bringing guns onto the subway — neatly explaining away the dearth of firearms caught by the scanners.
“Public safety and justice are the prerequisites to prosperity, and as our administration continues to look for ways to keep weapons off our subways, the NYPD’s pilot with Evolv helped serve as a deterrent to criminals and keep New Yorkers safe,” said City Hall spokesperson Amaris Cockfield. “At this time, the NYPD is still evaluating the results of the pilot and has not entered into any contract or commitments with the vendor.”
When Adams first rolled out the metal detectors in March, he called it a “Sputnik moment,” arguing the machines were an equivalent accomplishment to the Soviets’ sending the first probe into space in the 1950s.
Scanners like Evolv are used at various institutions around the city and country, but questions abounded about the tech, which saw an 85% rate of false positives regarding firearms in a pilot at Jacobi Hospital.
Just weeks before Adams showed off the tech, the CEO of Evolv had said in an investors call that subways specifically weren’t a “good use case” for the tech.
The company has previously come under scrutiny over the efficacy of its tech. Federal regulators are probing whether the company lied to investors about the scanners’ accuracy, and Evolv was sued by a Utica high school student who was stabbed with a knife not caught by the scanners.
While Adams said he expected riders to welcome the scanners, those amNewYork Metro spoke to tended to express wariness.
“Not only would I feel targeted and harassed,” one Bronxite said in July. “I’d feel it was an absolute waste of my tax money.”
City Hall has said it did not pay Evolv any money for the pilot demonstration. Nonetheless, the city’s Department of Investigation is now probing the circumstances over how the Adams administration hooked up with Evolv.
Evolv scanners are the latest in a long line of gadgets embraced by Mayor Adams, a self-professed “tech geek.” They include the “Digidog” police robot and drones to deliver audio messages from above during weather emergencies or big events like parades.
The embrace of tech has also included some notable failures like K5, the massive, 400-pound police robot that patrolled the Times Square subway station and now sits in storage.
