This coming Wednesday, Oct. 28, is National First Responders Day and we should use that date to reevaluate how emergency calls to 911 are handled.
Consider when NYPD Capt. James Wilson was caught on camera and on duty in May calling Mayor Mamdani “an embarrassment and total nonsense” and “expendable,” and calling Democrats a “waste of human race.” The NYPD responded by reassigning Wilson from his role as executive officer of the 94th precinct in Brooklyn to a 911 call center in the Bronx.
The mainstream press covered this as a story about the delicate relationship between a new mayor and his police department. But as a researcher who has extensively studied the nearly 60-year history of America’s emergency response system — and as the NYPD’s former director of research, policy, and planning — I believe it is far more troubling than that.
Treating 911 call centers as “punishment” or a “downgrade” for underperforming police officers should alarm every New Yorker who needs immediate help in crisis situations. It reveals why 911 should never be forced to operate under a police department or law enforcement agency in any community.
Similar to many communities around the country, New York City’s 911 professionals — including call takers, operators, and dispatchers — work under the auspices of the police department. This structure dates back to the creation of 911 in the late 1960s, when it was viewed less as support for emergency medical situations and more as a response to crime. Today, between 65% and 85% of all 911 calls still default to a law enforcement response, even though fewer than 5% involve a violent crime in progress.
Compounding this error in design is the utter disregard or flat out contempt with which many police officers view 911. More than 25 years ago, retired NYPD Capt. Edward Reuss wrote that police officers viewed themselves as “slaves to the radio,” suggesting that responding to 911 calls was beneath them, preventing real police work, or some combination of the two. He stated it plainly: “It was the worst assignment that I experienced” in his NYPD career.
When I joined the NYPD in 2015, I saw that same sentiment up close. One of my tasks was to redesign the department’s officer evaluation system. I would ask: “How do officers spend their time?” Many answers centered on the “slave” theme. One NYPD uniformed executive leader told me that officers felt constantly at the mercy of 911 calls, regardless of whether they were part of the response. He argued that 911 calls decreased officers’ independence and efficacy.
The repeated reference to “slaves” in this context is deeply disturbing, but it did help me better understand how police departments think about 911. Officers often have an adversarial relationship with their radios generally. Frustration with the constant calls is common. While that is perhaps understandable, that frustration can bleed into how they treat 911 professionals at the other end of the line. Officers routinely slow-walk 911 calls, or even ignore them completely. They often view these professionals not as colleagues, but as beneath them.
The consequences can extend far beyond a lack of collegiality — in some cases, they affect general operations, communications, and accountability. On Aug. 18, NYC’s 911 system unexpectedly stopped working and stayed down for nearly seven hours. At least 400 emergency calls were unable to connect with a 911 call taker. One would think city and police leadership would urgently get the word out. Instead, city officials failed to notify the public of the outage, only responding after journalists questioned the mayor about it.
That neglect extends to the 911 workforce. A 2023 Gothamist investigation reported that NYPD 911 professionals were “being made to work double shifts and being dissuaded from taking sick days.” Many NYPD 911 professionals were working 80-hour weeks while being paid substantially less than NYPD officers. They also did not have access to unlimited sick leave like NYPD officers, despite research showing that 911 professionals have far higher levels of anxiety, depression, PTSD, and suicidal ideation than their fire and law enforcement colleagues.
Other communities face similar challenges. Rep. Norma Torres — the only former 911 professional to ever serve in Congress — wrote that “during my service as a telecommunicator for the LAPD, it was considered a form of punishment to transfer a police captain to the 9-1-1 call center.” Torres noted that the reflexive disdain from police “not only reduces their morale, but also inhibits the functioning of our broader public safety system.”
The conclusion is inescapable: slotting 911 under the guidance of law enforcement officers who range from skeptical to outright hostile in their relationship to 911 centers is a recipe for mismanagement and ineffective leadership. When officers are “demoted” to 911 after being accused of misconduct, it exacerbates the problem.
A far better approach would be for cities to follow the lead of places like Seattle and Henrico, Va. that have successfully established 911 emergency operations as standalone entities, rather than subordinating them to law enforcement agencies. Separate funding streams could be established for better pay, benefits, and workplace conditions. Communities could better recruit and retain skilled emergency responders. Individuals applying for those jobs would do so because they want to be there, not because they’ve been “demoted.”
It is well past time for cities like New York to stop regarding 911 professionals as irrelevant or unworthy, and start treating them as heroic and essential first responders. They answer nearly 25,000 calls every day by New Yorkers experiencing some of the worst moments of their lives, racing to save lives and protect health. The city owes them gratitude and respect in return.
Neusteter is the executive director of Health Lab at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. Her book “911, What’s Your Emergency? The Promise and Peril of Crisis Response” was published on Sept. 15.