Months before a dispatcher mishandled a call from the cell phone of a UW-Madison student around the time she was killed in her Downtown apartment, Madison police had concerns about the Dane County 911 Center not dispatching officers when it should have, according to Chief Noble Wray.

It isn 't known how often the 911 Center has failed to dispatch officers when warranted, Wray said, because his department has yet to receive data it requested from center officials after the issue of dropped calls arose during a series of community meetings last fall in which residents voiced concerns about crime and other problems in their neighborhoods.

Rich McVicar, operations manager for the 911 Center, said Saturday he was not familiar with such a request from Wray, which would require listening to and reviewing every call. But McVicar said that anecdotally and excluding calls to the police department 's self-reporting system, situations in which 911 Center employees failed to dispatch police when they should have are rare.

The 911 Center has been notified by police of calls to the Police Department 's self-reporting system that warranted an officer response, such as a burglary, McVicar said. In some of those instances, a 911 dispatcher had referred callers to the self-reporting system, McVicar said. In others, it could not be determined if a 911 Center employee had directed a caller to the self-reporting system rath

911

Continued from Page D1

er than dispatching police.

McVicar said he believes that most of the times when the 911 Center did not dispatch officers it was following Madison Police Department policy.

Even before last fall 's community meetings, Wray said, he was aware of concerns about the 911 Center dropping calls.

Wray has previously said that officers should have been dispatched after a call to 911 was made from the cell phone of Brittany Zimmermann, 21, who was killed in her West Doty Street apartment April 2 after her building was broken into. He has requested, and the 911 Center is conducting, an internal investigation of how the call was handled.

In interviews Friday, Wray and one of his command officers said that though there have been concerns about dropped calls for many months, none had previously been associated with high-profile cases.

Capt. Carl Gloede, who represents Madison police on the 911 Center 's advisory board, said dropped calls -- when police should have been sent in response to a 911 call but were not dispatched -- before the Zimmermann call were low-priority, such as reports of some type of nuisance.

A 2004 report that found several deficiencies in the staffing, procedures and oversight of the 911 center predicted the county faced potential liability resulting from a "catastrophic event " if it didn 't address staffing problems, including the amount of overtime 911 center employees worked.

Referring to the 911 call from Zimmermann 's cell phone, Madison Ald. Paul Skidmore said, "You saw the catastrophic problem. "

"We anticipated this would happen, " Skidmore said. "This is the worst-case scenario. "

Center staffing

Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk has said she believes that staffing at the 911 center is adequate. And Robert Kaelin, the consultant who worked on the 2004 study, said the center had enough staff working the day the call from Zimmermann 's cell phone came in.

But Kaelin said it 's not clear that the center has dealt with problems of too much overtime for dispatchers, and other weaknesses in quality control.

Kaelin recommended in 2004 that the center immediately add eight employees, and said that additional staff would "likely be required in the near future as 911 activity continues to increase. " To date, six of the eight positions recommended in 2004 have been added.

Skidmore, who was on the 911 Center board from 2002 to 2007 and was reappointed to the board last week by Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, said, "I think the center is understaffed. I think they 're underfunded. "

Authorities have said a 911 dispatcher took the call from Zimmermann 's cell phone but heard nothing, then failed to call the number back as agency protocol generally requires. Dane County officials first said that the dispatcher hung up on the call, but later said it could not be determined how the call was terminated.

Madison police say their investigation revealed that it was not a hang-up call and that there was evidence in the call that should have prompted the dispatcher to send police. Officers were not notified of the call until after Zimmermann 's body was found by her fiance. According to police, dispatching officers would have been consistent with both the department 's policy and national 911 standards.

Problems discussed

A month after Zimmermann 's death and two weeks before authorities, on May 1, publicly acknowledged the mishandling of the Zimmermann call, Skidmore and other members of the city 's Public Safety Review Board discussed problems with how 911 calls were being handled.

According to minutes of the April 16 meeting, Skidmore told board members that police officers had approached him about problems with "dropped calls, calls not properly dispatched by civilian dispatchers, calls recorded but not dispatched, or not followed up on. "

The minutes also state that Assistant Chief of Police John Davenport told board members that he met with 911 officials regarding dropped calls and gave the officials a memo with "a list of expectations. "

Wray said that he, Davenport and Gloede met with McVicar and Joe Norwick, director of the 911 Center, after the community meetings last fall.

Gloede said that meeting was precipitated by "a number of issues " with the 911 Center that came out of the community meetings. "Dropped calls were an issue, " he said, adding that citizens and council members were complaining that police were not responding to calls. Gloede said that addressing the issue of dropped calls was "a priority. "

McVicar said that in 2007, the 911 Center received 21 complaints from police and the public -- 17 of which were determined to be founded -- out of the 668,460 calls it handled. Of those, 148,608 were outgoing calls, 519,852 were incoming calls and 161,348 were 911 calls.

Madison Police Lt. Joe Balles said that because people don 't know how to make complaints to the 911 Center, they usually complain to the Police Department, because that 's the agency they were trying to get help from.

Cieslewicz spokesman George Twigg said Skidmore was reappointed to the 911 board after the mayor became aware that Ald. Eli Judge, a UW-Madison student who was appointed to the board in place of Skidmore last year, had not attended any board meetings because of conflicts with his class schedule.

Skidmore, a longtime public-safety advocate, said he believes Cieslewicz failed to reappoint him to the 911 board, as well as to the Park Commission last year, because "he 's not happy with my political philosophy. "

Skidmore, who supported former Mayor Paul Soglin in his unsuccessful bid against Cieslewicz in 2003, opposed Cieslewicz 's plan to sell the land the landmark Lincoln School Building sits on, at 720 E. Gorham St.

Twigg said Skidmore 's position on the land sale was part of the reason he wasn 't reappointed to the Park Commission, but denied that politics was a factor in not reappointing him to the 911 board.

What's next

Monday: Dane County Supervisors Ronn Ferrell, Eileen Bruskewitz and Jack Martz will conduct a public hearing focusing on the 911 Center  's performance from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Fitchburg Community Center, 5510 Lacy Road (lower level). The hearing is intended to give community members an opportunity to hear available facts regarding the 911 Center, including staffing levels, and to provide input. Members of the 85 user groups of the 911 system are also invited to tell about their experiences with the 911 Call Center.

Wednesday: The Dane County Public Safety Communications Center Board meets at 1 p.m. at the Madison Police Department East District, 809 S. Thompson Drive. June 4: The Dane County Board executive committee will conduct a public hearing at 6 p.m. in Room 201 of the City-County Building, 210 Martin Luther King, Jr., Blvd.