Union officials defend 911 dispatcher in Zimmermann case
Union officials fiercely defended on Wednesday the embattled 911 dispatcher who took Brittany Zimmermann's phone call the day she was murdered.
Shannon Maier, president of AFSCME Local 720 -- which represents county workers -- said the dispatcher acted professionally in handling that call, as she has throughout her 20-year career in the dispatch center.
"She is a very caring, very dedicated county employee," Maier said of the beleaguered dispatcher. "I would have no problem with her being at the end of a 911 call for me or my family."
Zimmermann, 21, was killed April 2 in the Doty Street apartment she shared with her fiance Jordan Gonnering, who found her body when he returned home at about 1 p.m. that day. Sources told The Capital Times that she was stabbed to death.
Attention has been focused on the dispatcher in the past week since Isthmus reported that a 911 call from Zimmermann's cell phone had been placed that day, and county officials said the dispatcher violated protocol by hanging up and not returning the call.
Union officials, however, said the dispatcher -- who has since been switched to a new job at her request -- followed protocol when she took the call. "She is a long term 911 dispatcher," Maier said, "very good at what she does and a very caring and competent individual."
Earlier Wednesday, union officials told reporters the call contained only background noise and that there was no response when the call taker asked what the emergency was. By late Wednesday afternoon, the union leaders were no longer willing to talk about the specifics of the call, and Maier explained they were ordered not to discuss specifics.
But Maier did say earlier that the dispatcher followed rules when handling the call. "Protocol is that 911 (hang up) calls are returned if time permits," Maier said. "Unfortunately, time did not permit," because of pressing duties of other calls, she said.
Both city and county leaders have refused to make the 911 tape available to the public and media, and have also refused to release a report on the situation. County Board members are expected to question dispatch center director Joe Norwick at a meeting Thursday at 5:30 p.m. in the City County Building.
Adding to the complexity of the problem is that the same dispatcher took another hang-up call seconds after the call from Zimmermann. That turned out to be from two men in Middleton who had mistakenly called the 911 center. But the Madison Police Department, the lead agency in the Zimmermann murder investigation, was led to believe the second call may have been related to the murder and detectives spent time trying to track down the two men before realizing they weren't involved in the case.
Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk said earlier this week she has sent letters of apology to the Zimmermann family as well as to her fiance, Gonnering, saying a call should have been returned to Zimmermann's cell phone. But Falk also said she is convinced the murder would not have been averted, even with a return call.
There has been no indication yet from either Falk or Norwick whether any disciplinary action will be attempted against the dispatcher. An internal investigation in the dispatch center has not been completed.
Maier said if county officials seek to discipline the dispatcher, "the union will be there to defend her if she asks us to do that."
"Of course she feels bad that this happened." said Maier, "It's a horrible, tragic event."
"She did what she could do given the situation," Maier added. "These people work hard, they do a tough job every day and they do it well," she said.
mmiller@madison.com
File photo
UW student Brittany Zimmermann was killed April 2 in her apartment in Madison.
