Overview
- At a City Council hearing Thursday, the city’s tech chief said roughly $12 million in state and federal funds is in place and Baltimore will seek bids to replace the 20-year-old system.
- Officials warned the changeover could take years, pointing to Denver’s four-year project as a guide, and they have not set a date to issue the request for proposals.
- The Computer-Aided Dispatch platform links police, fire and 911 call-takers and handles about 2.1 million calls a year, yet leaders say it is outdated and prone to outages.
- The push follows a June 24, 2025 failure during Dontae Melton Jr.’s mental-health crisis that left officers unable to get an ambulance before he was driven to a hospital and later died.
- Melton’s mother pressed for crisis-response training and accountability, and officials said a new system would add 911 diversion, faster dispatch and stronger security, with no outages reported so far in 2026.