By Cole ReynoldsTHE WASHINGTON POST

Schools in at least three states will be equipped with drones this year that can zoom through halls, smash windows and pepper-spray active shooters if teachers report a threat.

At least nine schools - three in Florida, five in Georgia and one in Colorado - will have storage boxes that house the plastic, nonlethal aircraft made by Austin-based Mithril Defense. The drones, which can be activated by teachers, are capable of reaching a shooter within 15 seconds.

The aircraft are designed to distract their targets by flashing strobes, blaring sirens, spraying them with pepper gel, or ramming into them at 60 mph.

 Once I get the drones on you, you just can't escape them,  said Bill King, a retired Navy SEAL and Mithril Defense co-founder.

The programs continue a wave of spending on high-tech security on campuses - a multibillion dollar industry fueled by threat of school shootings. Nearly 400,000 students have experienced gun violence at school since the 1999 attack at Columbine High School in Colorado, according to a Washington Post tracker, which has recorded 435 shootings over that period.

Deltona High School, a public school just north of Orlando, with about 1,700 students, became the first campus to install the system at the end of last school year. Two more Florida schools - Boyd H. Anderson High School near Fort Lauderdale and Godby High School in Tallahassee - were also tapped by the state to complete the $557,000 pilot spearheaded by state legislators.

Five schools in Georgia will also test the drone systems after state legislators there approved a roughly $500,000 pilot program with Mithril Defense. The state has not finalized the schools that will participate, but Mithril said the systems will come online during upcoming school year.

Georgia state Rep. Matt Dubnik (R), chairman of the House appropriations education subcommittee, said the technology could protect schools that don't have resource officers on campus. The pilot will be tested in schools with and without the officers, he said.

 I'm a believer in the technology,  Dubnik said, ad

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