Kansas City 911 wait times: Consultant makes recommendations [Video]

A consultant told the Kansas City, Missouri, Board of Police Commissioners on Tuesday that nearly half of the police department’s 911 calls are non-emergency.Dean Hart, CEO of Tusa Consulting of Liberty, said that information comes from a study done for Jackson County on 911 response.Hart said part of the answer to wait times far longer than the industry standard for 911 calls would be for the city to expand its 311 call center to an around-the-clock operation to handle a significant portion of those calls.“We got to sit here and work on getting rid of these non-emergency calls that are taking up a lot of time for a call taker that should be answering emergency calls,” Hart said at the meeting.“That is something that the city is already exploring. We are looking at AI (artificial intelligence) to answer some of the issues people will have,” said Mayor Quinton Lucas.At the …