The Dane County 911 Center was playing with fire following a policy in which they only followed up calls they deemed appropriate. Unfortunately they got burned.

Under severe scrutiny, Dane County 911 Center Director Joe Norwick resigned from his position Friday following months of speculation that the center mishandled a call from the UW-Madison student Brittany Zimmerman’s cell phone the day she was killed, according to a Sept. 8 Badger Herald article.

Despite coming later than it should have been, Norwick’s resignation is a good thing for the community. It will help to calm down the public and will make the students living in the UW-Madison campus and their parents feel like they are safer and more is being done to ensure they are protected. Something needed to be done to make the community feel secure and this
is it.

However Norwick is not the only one to blame and his resignation will not solve the ultimate problem. According to the article, 115 hang-up calls were made the day Zimmerman was killed – 83 of which were from cell phones. Those who make calls to the police that do not need their assistance make it hard for short-budgeted departments to make it feasible to follow up on every call they receive.

Because of this, law makers and police need to make an attempt to reduce the number of prank or unnecessary calls to their dispatchers. Stiffer penalties such as higher fines need to be implemented to strongly discourage people from falsely or unnecessarily calling the police. Additionally, constant education in elementary and middle schools could aid in preventing adolescents from nonchalantly calling the police.

By doing this, further tragedies such as the one involving Zimmerman hopefully could be prevented from happening again.