I agree there are more productive forums than Reddit for effecting social change. OP also clearly felt threatened. Advocacy and utilization of alternative resources is important. Passive aggressively chiding someone to use an alternative response while they're coming down from a sense of threat isn't generally effective advocacy in my experience. And because OP felt threatened use of 911 is inherently reasonable.

All of that assumes OP was seeking resolution when maybe OP just wanted an empathetic audience since they had a scary experience in our city.

That said, if there's a threat or reasonable concern for safety they'll dispatch a CIT trained officer. They're a great resource but I've called them because a man made a vague threat to stab a person if he didn't get money or to harm himself and they essentially said 'at this point that's a 911 call' and politely but firmly got me off their line with an offer to transfer to 911 or allow me to call directly.

I appreciate your commitment to the resource but people should be aware it's not always the right one and you may be delaying getting help for yourself or others if the situation involves a threat.