Robert Weisberg, a professor and faculty co-director at Stanford University’s Criminal Justice Center, said the push to move police away from certain 911 calls has seen success in other cities.

“The fact is that police aren’t necessarily happy about having this work,” Weisberg said, because “very often it doesn’t have to do with crime.”

Weisberg noted that the challenge will be to develop an effective system used in dispatch centers that can identify whether a call can be properly handled without police intervention.