"Public safety experts and some of Mamdani's own advisers say there are significant failures in the city's emergency response system that contribute to fatal outcomes, even before officers arrive on the scene. They cite 911 dispatchers who don't gather enough information, call classifications that automatically trigger armed police responses regardless of what families request, and officers who enter scenes and react without pausing to assess them despite training to the contrary."
"After Chakraborty's shooting on Jan. 26, Mamdani said he would expedite the creation of a Department of Community Safety, which he says will help shift the city's crisis response away from police and toward clinicians and trained peers. But the mayor has also said in recent days that he's still figuring out how that department will operate and what the boundaries and limitations of a civilian response will look like."
Significant failures exist across the city's emergency response system that can lead to fatal outcomes in mental-health crises before officers arrive. 911 dispatchers often do not collect sufficient information and certain call classifications automatically trigger armed police responses even when families request medical help. Officers sometimes enter and react to scenes without pausing to assess them despite training to do otherwise. Two recent shootings involved people in mental-health crises whose families requested medical assistance but whose calls were routed to police. Plans for a Department of Community Safety aim to shift responses toward clinicians and trained peers, but operational details remain unresolved.
Read at Gothamist
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