KVIG Informative

A preschooler was accidentally shot on an RTC bus. A passenger was shot in the east valley. Now Southern Nevada’s transit system runs AI-powered gun detection cameras and 300 armed security officers — and state law just gave them new power to act on what they see.

The Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada became the first transit agency in the country to deploy wide-scale AI-based weapons detection technology across its transit centers, partnering with ZeroEyes to add the system to its existing security camera network.

The deployment followed a string of violent incidents on RTC buses, including a shooting that accidentally struck a preschool-age child following an altercation and a separate shooting that injured a passenger in the east valley.

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RTC entered a seven-year contract with Inter-Con Security in 2024 to staff the valley’s transit system with nearly 300 officers, all of them armed — a change from the agency’s previous security contractor, under which only about 70% of officers carried weapons.

RTC CEO MJ Maynard said tens of thousands of people depend on the transit system every day, and that the agency continually looks for ways to improve their safety and security. ZeroEyes CEO Mike Lahiff said RTC set a new national standard by becoming the first transit agency to execute wide-scale deployment of weapons detection analytics.

A new state law that took effect this year, sponsored by Assemblywoman Rochelle Nguyen and signed by Gov. Joe Lombardo, gives RTC safety officers the authority to physically remove disruptive passengers from buses, bus stops and transit centers — power they did not previously have even with probable cause. The law does not grant officers arrest authority.

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RTC budgeted $26 million for its security contract in a recent fiscal year specifically to expand these measures, according to the agency, layering armed patrol officers, AI camera detection and new legal removal authority into a single security strategy across the transit system.

Southern Nevada’s buses are safer to look at on paper than they were two years ago — more cameras, more armed officers, more legal authority to intervene. Whether riders actually feel that shift, or simply notice the new yellow uniforms at the transit center, is still the open question RTC’s own safety campaign hasn’t fully answered.