Jordan Rosenthal testifies on need for independent 911 system separate from NYPD

Thank you, Chairs.

My name is Jordan Rosenthal, and I'm the Director of Advocacy at Community Access, which is a supportive housing nonprofit, and I also lead a coalition called Correct Crisis Intervention Today,

which specializes in getting the city to kind of fix the Be Heard program and be as effective as possible.

I'm here today to talk about

specifically the need to have an independent 911.

I know that this is a little tangential to what we're talking about, but since we're discussing strengths and weaknesses of our 911 system, I really think it's something that we need to be looking at.

So specifically,

One of the, I wasn't reading off my thing, I'm so sorry.

I'm advocating that our city's 911 system be fully independent of the New York Police Department.

This change will strengthen our crisis system by allowing more opportunities for specialized response options like Be Heard to be deployed and reduce the likelihood of unnecessary and often harmful police deployment to mental health calls.

The New York City Police Department is already asked to do too much, and this advocacy is intended to reduce burdens and improve outcomes.

Across the country, unarmed, highly trained crisis responders are showing up to mental health and behavioral health calls, substance use crisis, neighbor disputes, welfare checks, and do so safely in ways that their communities actually want.

This idea is not revolutionary.

Seattle.

voted on this in 2021 and earlier this year in 2026 Austin City Council did the same.

Additionally, Rebecca Neustrachter, I always butcher her last name so apologies, who is the premier 911 expert in the country out of the University of Chicago Health Lab, wrote a whole report about reforming 911

and one of their key recommendations, it was actually number six on the list, is that

police, I'm sorry, not police departments, 911 departments need to be equal and separate from police and other entities.

So specifically, what the authors argue is that practically and politically difficult when emergency communication centers are in a subordinate position to the police department.

And we kind of saw this a little bit today in the bit of like,

you know, I always call it the Spider-Man meme of pointing to each other, of saying like, oh, the FDNY knows or NYPD.

It would have been a lot clearer in communications about what happened and who needed to know about this emergency if it was under one roof.

So with that, I'm going to just kind of, you can read my testimony, but that's the gist of it, is that we should be really looking at best practice to have the strongest 911 center, and that means it needs to be independent and equal to that of FDNY, NYPD,

etc.

Too many cooks in the kitchen.

Thank you for your testimony.

Thank you.