Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Baltimore council hearing exposes gaps in crisis response after three recent deaths
Summary
Council members and agency leaders told a Committee of the Whole hearing Aug. 27 that Baltimore lacks capacity and coordination to reliably divert behavioral-health calls from 911 to 988, with officials citing thousands of 911 behavioral-health calls and only a handful of diversions; the council requested a seven-business-day plan to close gaps.
Baltimore City Council President Zeke Cohen opened a Committee of the Whole hearing Aug. 27 saying "no person in our city should lose their life to a mental health crisis," and urged urgent fixes after three recent deaths involving police during behavioral-health encounters. Cohen cited a consent-decree implementation review that recorded 4,270 911 calls coded as behavioral-health calls since July 2024 and said only 28 of those were diverted to 988.
The hearing convened community leaders, agency heads and dozens of residents to probe why so few calls reach the 988 helpline and why mobile crisis responses take far longer than national and state standards. Jamal Turner, chair of the Police…
Already have an account? Log in
Subscribe to keep reading
Unlock the rest of this article — and every article on Citizen Portal.
- Unlimited articles
- AI-powered breakdowns of topics, speakers, decisions, and budgets
- Instant alerts when your location has a new meeting
- Follow topics and more locations
- 1,000 AI Insights / month, plus AI Chat
