(DOUG JESSOP – JESSOP’S JOURNEY’S) Meet Shai Lustgarten. He told me about his grandparents, heroic leaders of the Polish underground in World War II, Shimon Lustgarten and Shifra Lustgarten.

DOUG -They both get captured. They are in Auschwitz and then they escape, but they break back in? SHAI – Right. They joined the Partisans in the forest. The resistance was named the Partisans and then they were able to lead back some forests to break in and get a lot of Jewish people out, and they did that three times.

That heritage of courage and desire to protect people drives Shai as the CEO of a company called OmniQ. He told me; “One of the more know products that we have is called Q Shield where we can prevent shootings happening in schools. You have first-hand, Realtime information that is processed and automatic applications that create actions to resolve and treat events.”

OmniQ uses a camera network along with AI to create realtime vehicle recognition, correlates with hot lists and then issues alerts

How is the Safe City program working? Shai reported; “We installed one of the systems, the first ones with Q Shield for Safe City. We started this program several months ago. The very first city, a very small town. In the first month we already solved 23 crimes. We found a missing person. Like you said information, intelligence is the power, is how you protect schools, how you protect cities, etc.”

Kyle Strickland is the Police Chief in the city of Adrian, Georgia. He said; “We needed another set of eyes 24/7. A force multiplier. It’s stopped a lot more crime than what we anticipated. We have investigated and solved a total of 23 gas drive offs at our local store. Based because of the cameras. Based on the solution.”

Chief Strickland got emotion as he continued after the official interview was over. His parting words were; “If a child, God forbid, gets abducted from the next county over and are heading here we can know and know where they are heading to hopefully set up to intervene.”

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Everyone has a story. I strongly feel that “stories have power”. Chances are that if you are going through something, that someone else probably has as well. The shared experiences we humans have can help each other. That my friend makes the point that stories “help us understand each other.”

You don’t have to agree with everyone, but in my opinion, if people would take more time getting to knowing more about others and where they are coming from, we just might find out that we have more similarities than differences.

It’s my honor to be able to share, Jessop’s Journal, a 30-minute collection of Powerful, Positive and Inspirational Stories every Sunday morning at 10 a.m. on ABC4 to all of Utah along with parts of Nevada, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado and Arizona. Jessop’s Journal is also available worldwide at JessopsJournal.com. Please note that an extended version of my interview with Shai Lustgarten will be featured in an upcoming episode of Jessop’s Journal.

With another entry into Jessop’s Journeys, “People, Places and Things You might not know about,” I’m Doug Jessop.