Memphis Security Insider is independent and unaffiliated with the City of Memphis, the Memphis Police Department, or the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services. This article explains published agency guidance; it does not make a clinical assessment or promise a dispatch outcome.
The choices presented on a Memphis 911 call have changed, according to the City.
In a September 4 city bulletin, Mayor Paul Young announced that callers would be asked to choose among police, fire, EMS, or “Mental Health Response.” If the caller selects the new option, the call taker will ask more questions and determine the appropriate response. City of Memphis announcement
For a property manager, that is a post-order change. The person making the call may be a leasing employee at 2 p.m., a contract officer at midnight, or a maintenance worker who has never opened the emergency plan. Each needs the same short instruction: report the location, describe what is happening, identify urgent hazards, and answer the call taker’s questions.
The new choice does not turn property staff into clinicians. Quite the opposite. It gives them a clearer way to state the kind of help they are requesting without guessing at a diagnosis.
What the announcement establishes, and what it does not
The City’s notice is specific about two points. “Mental Health Response” is now one of the choices presented to a 911 caller in Memphis. A caller who chooses it will receive additional questions so the call taker can decide on the response. Selection starts the triage; it does not let the caller choose a particular team.
Stop there.
The announcement does not publish operating hours, eligibility rules, response-time targets, staffing for a dispatched team, or a promise that police, fire, or EMS will stay out of a particular call. It does not say every situation identified this way will receive the same response. Any property procedure that promises those details would go beyond the source.
That limit should appear in training. Staff can request Mental Health Response and give accurate information. According to the notice, the call taker determines the appropriate response after asking more questions. A supervisor should never tell a resident, guest, or employee that selecting the option guarantees a counselor, guarantees no police presence, or guarantees an arrival time.
The notice also points people toward 988 when they face a mental health, substance-use, or emotional crisis and need someone to talk to. It says trained crisis counselors are available around the clock. This means a property plan now needs to explain both numbers without making employees solve a clinical question on their own.
Put 911 and 988 on one card
Tennessee’s behavioral health department says calling or texting 988 and pressing 0 connects a person with a trained counselor. The department describes statewide mobile crisis service for adults, children, and young people, available at all hours in all 95 counties. Tennessee crisis services
Those services are not simply another name for the new Memphis 911 option. They are separate access routes described by separate agencies. The City says 911 call takers can now receive a Mental Health Response selection and ask follow-up questions. The state says 988 can connect callers to counseling and local crisis resources, including mobile crisis when appropriate. The state pages do not say every 988 contact sends a mobile team.
A separate City resource currently tells residents to call 911 for an emergency or crime in progress and 988 for a mental health crisis. Read with the September 4 announcement, those public pages identify both entry points but do not publish a complete decision tree for a crisis that also presents immediate danger. Property staff should not invent the missing triage rule. City of Memphis contact guidance
A desk card can stay plain:
| Situation | Published route | What property staff should do |
|---|---|---|
| Immediate danger, injury, weapon, fire, crime in progress or another emergency needing a local public-safety response | Call 911 | Give the exact location, describe observed conduct and immediate hazards, then answer the call taker’s questions. If prompted, select the response that fits the facts reported. |
| Mental health, substance-use, or emotional crisis where someone needs a counselor | Call or text 988; press 0 in Tennessee | When the person is willing and able, let them speak directly. Answer the counselor’s questions, and do not promise that the contact will send a mobile team. |
| The facts could fit both rows, or immediate danger is unclear | Call 911 | State the uncertainty and the observed facts. Do not delay the call while staff debate a diagnosis or dispatch model. |
This table is an editorial aid based on the linked public guidance. A property should have its safety, human-resources, legal, and clinical advisers review any policy that assigns duties to employees.
Report conduct, not a diagnosis
Imagine an overnight desk employee at a Midtown apartment building finds a person pacing near the elevators, shouting disconnected phrases and striking a wall. This is a training scenario, not a reported incident.
The caller should first give the property’s verified street address and identify the lobby. “They struck the east wall twice, no weapon is visible from my position, and another resident is standing near the elevator” gives facts the caller can observe. Saying the person “has schizophrenia” or is “on drugs” turns a guess into a medical claim.
The employee should not move closer to improve the description. Nor should the caller omit a visible weapon, injury, fire, threat, or urgent medical concern in an attempt to steer the dispatch. The new option is a way to communicate the nature of the call. It is not a reason to edit out danger.
Write the script around five items:
- The property address and exact part of the site.
- What the caller sees and hears now.
- Any immediate threat, injury, weapon, fire, or medical concern the caller can actually observe.
- A safe callback number and where the caller will wait.
- Access information responders request, such as a gate or entrance name.
When staffing allows and site policy supports it, designate one caller. Another employee, when it is safe, can keep other residents or customers away from the area and prepare the requested access point. Nobody should be assigned to restrain, search, corner, or transport a person merely because a manager suspects a mental health crisis.
Rewrite post orders before the next shift
Search the property manual for instructions that say “call police” whenever a person appears confused, agitated, or in distress. That wording may be too vague now. It may also push staff toward interpreting behavior instead of reporting it.
Replace it with a dated instruction that names the available routes, the information a caller must provide, and the employee who takes over the site after the call. Put the same language in the contract officer’s post orders and the management team’s emergency plan. If those documents disagree, the night shift gets the contradiction.
Then test it.
Use a fictional scenario and ask a relief employee to find the right page, identify the property address, and explain the difference between requesting a response through 911 and contacting 988 for crisis support. The exercise should also test what happens when the primary supervisor does not answer. Five minutes is enough to expose an old phone number or a plan stored behind an unavailable login.
Do not ask workers to disclose their own mental health history during the drill. The task is operational: make the call, give verified facts, protect distance, preserve access, and complete the handoff.
Keep the incident record narrow
After the scene is safe, record what the property needs for its authorized incident process. Use times, locations, observed actions, calls made, instructions received, and steps taken by staff. Separate a direct observation from what another person reported.
Avoid adding a diagnosis to a general security log. Avoid distributing the account to every shift simply because the incident involved distress. Keep personal details within the property’s authorized incident process rather than assuming they belong in a shared guard log.
The review should ask operational questions. Did the caller know the exact entrance? Did the person on duty know that Mental Health Response had been added to 911? Could staff find 988 without searching the internet? Did anyone make a promise about who would arrive? Did the next shift receive necessary safety information without receiving personal details it did not need?
Those questions produce changes a property can verify. When a worker or customer is also a crime victim, our separate Memphis workplace referral guide covers support contacts after the immediate emergency. It does not replace 911, 988 or the property’s authorized incident process.
Treat the new option as a public response route, not a staffing substitute
Public dispatch does not replace a property’s own coverage. The September 4 bulletin announces an intake choice. It does not commit the City to watch a lobby, manage an access-controlled entrance, or remain after responders leave.
Property managers should ask contract security companies how their post orders handle the new 911 prompt. The answer should identify who calls, what facts are relayed, who maintains a safe perimeter, and who documents the handoff. A vendor should not advertise a guaranteed city response that the City itself has not promised.
The cited City notice leaves public questions unanswered. It does not explain how calls transfer between 911 and 988, which response models are available by time or location, or what performance measures will be released. Property managers can update their side of the handoff now while leaving those unknowns visible.
Give the new desk card its actual revision date, cite the City’s September 4, 2026 announcement, and assign someone to check it against current City and Tennessee guidance. Memphis says it added a fourth choice to 911. The next test is whether the person at your front desk knows how to describe the problem without pretending to diagnose it.