Should the cops run the 911 center?

When you call 911 in Austin the call-taker will ask what you need: police, fire, EMS or mental health. It was a tough question to answer that time I called to report a deranged woman setting things on fire in the middle of the street.

Although there are employees of all three public safety agencies at the 911 center, APD oversees the operation and the first person who picks up the call is an APD employee. Based on what you tell them you need, your call may then be transferred to a fire or EMS call-taker.

Thanks to today's sponsor!

Zoning, transit, infrastructure and development decisions can shape both a home’s value and your quality of life. Lonny Stern combines more than 20 years as an Austin Realtor with a professional background in urban planning, transportation and economic development. He currently serves on Austin’s Zoning & Platting Commission and helps clients make better-informed decisions about the property—and the city—around them.

Find a home that connects you to more of Austin.

City service is noted for biographical purposes only; no City endorsement is stated or implied.

Last month as part of the budget, a narrow majority of Council members voted for a resolution allocating $1.7 million towards setting up a joint emergency communications department that would oversee the 911 center. It passed over the opposition of Mayor Kirk Watson and City Manager T.C. Broadnax.

The mayor decried the move as irresponsible anti-police grandstanding, arguing in a KXAN interview that Council had acted against the expressed wishes of the police, fire and EMS chiefs and before a long-awaited consultant report was available.

Watson contended that, given the dramatic improvement in 911 response times over the past few years, there was little to fix.

"Why is this happening? And I think part of it is politics. It is some folks that don't like the police department, don't like the police budget and so they're using this as a means to try to push back on the police," he said.

However, CM Mike Siegel, one of the measure's key backers, said his concerns about the status quo have nothing to do with response times. He and others believe the current system often results in police being sent to situations that would be better served by other resources, such as mental health experts. They point to APD's periodic killing of mentally ill people as one unfortunate symptom of a cop-brained emergency response system.