Atlanta's 911 calls skyrocket in 2023: Too many non-emergency callers

ATLANTA - City leaders within Atlanta’s emergency services department say calls to 911 have skyrocketed in the last year—causing prolonged wait times.

On Monday, Atlanta Police Department’s chief administrative officer, Peter Aman, told members of the city council’s public safety committee that calls increased by 14% in 2023, but data he shared showed those calls rarely turned out to be real emergencies.

Dispatcher: "You said you tryna move pillows from one couch to another couch?"

Caller: "…yeah."

This was one of more than a million calls metro Atlanta residents made to the city’s E-911 center last year.

Aman said conversations like it made up a majority of calls to dispatch.

Dispatcher: "911 what’s the address of your emergency?"

Caller: "Yeah…you don’t know what the score is, do you?"

City of Atlanta 911 Center

Aman told committee members that out of 1.3 million calls handled by the ATL e-911 in 2023, only 45,000 were deemed serious emergencies and only 900 of those were shootings or stabbings.

"Just wasted resources," Public Safety Committee Chairwoman Andrea L. Boone told FOX 5.

"We have really a mindboggling variety of calls that really people make," Aman said during the meeting.

Though call wait times have improved slightly from an average of 29 seconds to 24 seconds, he told members of council the influx of non-emergency calls has made it difficult to get phones answered more quickly on top of staffing issues.

"The 911 operator position is a highly stressful job," Boone said.

She told FOX 5 they’re now urging residents to think twice before dialing the number and directing people with non-emergencies to call 311 instead.

"It’s our responsibility to educate the citizens on where they should call, when they should call and who they should call."

Beginning in February, ATL 311 will be used to handle APD’s non-emergency calls.

Aman said they’ve also launched a new web portal for non-emergency dispatch calls.