Shea says that the department handles 43,000 calls per month. So that's around 1,400 per day, which comes out to almost 60 an hour, or one per minute, assuming they were evenly distributed across 24 hours, which of course is an unlikely if simplifying assumption.

From the reporting it sounded like the dispatch had two people on call for the Taqueria night, and one was late, or something like that. I don't necessarily doubt the claim that they had +200 at that moment — it's a big city and 911 is used for a lot of different services — but by his number cited, that is pretty close to the norm? Like why can their system not scale to 2X normal volume? Any reasonable system would assume that there would regularly be demand above baseline, especially for a system based around emergencies.

Shea also seems to be pitching the idea that the problem here is "government technology" lagging behind "civilian technology," and that the "modern environment" is what is "overwhelm[ing]" the system. I find this... unlikely, and a strange framing. It does not sound like an informed or accurate response.

He really doesn't seem to get that this is a vital, necessary, emergency system. Having this work reliably is not optional. It is the bare minimum.