Thursday night's Dane County Board committee meeting offers a chance to learn more about how and why the county's 911 center mishandled a call from Britanny Zimmermann's cell phone around the time she was murdered on April 2.

The public should demand that officials use the meeting, along with investigations yet to be completed, to identify and fix the problems with deliberate speed.

In the meantime, there is something for the public to do, too: Cut down on 911 calls that are hang-ups, misdials, pranks or just plain foolish.

Mistaken calls and 911 abuse make it that much more difficult for emergency personnel to do their jobs correctly.
Hang-up calls loom important in the Zimmermann case because the call from her phone was classified as a hang-up — one of 115 hang-ups received by the 911 center that day.

When a hang-up call occurs, the 911 operator is unable to determine if an emergency exists. Policy then requires the operator to take the extra step of calling the number back.

In the Zimmermann case, the operator violated the policy.
The very next call was a hang-up, too, which the operator did return. Two male voices indicated the call was a mistake.
The back-to-back hang-ups later produced confusion that caused the 911 center to misinform police about two male voices on Zimmermann's phone. The misinformation sidetracked part of the investigation.

The volume of hang-up calls does not excuse the mistakes made by the 911 center. However, the hang-ups point to the problems that mistaken 911 calls can contribute to.

In response, the public should:

• Never use 911 for prank or non-emergency calls. Instruct children to use 911 properly.

• Take care when dialing. The international access code and several area codes are only one digit away from 911.

• If you misdial, don't hang up. Explain the mistake. If you are calling from a land line, policy calls for an officer to be dispatched anyway, just in case, but at least the operator will not have to waste time calling you back.

To make sure Dane County never again has to apologize for the failure of the 911 system, it's up to county officials to make sure the staff, technology, training, budget and oversight are up to the task.

But it's also up to all residents of the county to be conscientious users of the emergency system.