Officerfriendly-"Just say no to common sense" never lets facts, statistics, research or common sense get in the way of her posts. She justs lights another doobie and makes things up.

Did it possibly occur to the Dane County dispatcher that the phone may have been disconnected by the perp? Kathleen Falk should resign from this incident. The dispatcher hasn't even been disciplined in the incident. Kathleen Falk held a news conference and didn't even start out by sending her condolences to the family of the student. She was more worried about covering her behind. And saying that the murder would have happened anyway. WOW WOW WOW what a thing to say.

"the gun is almost always taken away and used against you". Did you pull this out of thin air or do you have some facts to back up that statement? Here are some facts!
The Lott-Mustard Report

John Lott and David Mustard, in connection with the University of Chicago Law School, examining crime statistics from 1977 to 1992 for all U.S. counties, concluded that the thirty-one states allowing their residents to carry concealed, had significant reductions in violent crime. Lott writes, "Our most conservative estimates show that by adopting shall-issue laws, states reduced murders by 8.5%, rapes by 5%, aggravated assaults by 7% and robbery by 3%. If those states that did not permit concealed handguns in 1992 had permitted them back then, citizens might have been spared approximately 1,570 murders, 4,177 rapes, 60,000 aggravated assaults and 12,000 robberies. To put it even more simply criminals, we found, respond rationally to deterrence threats... While support for strict gun-control laws usually has been strongest in large cities, where crime rates are highest, that's precisely where right-to-carry laws have produced the largest drops in violent crimes."

I stand corrected on what I said about Rock County saying they were better than Dane. I guess that was my impression, how I read the article. Thanks for pointing out the other side of the topic. When I see it that way, it is nice to hear how aware Rock COunty is about 911 hangups. Thanks!

guns are NOT the answer and never are. most if not all people can not even shoot a person if they had to. the gun is almost always taken away and used against you. to speculate is just insensitive to the family of this girl. there are plenty of blogs to blah blah blah on, HAVE SOME RESPECT !

jendood, the story probably came down to that because a reporter asked rock county what they would do in this situation and they answered them ,

unknown , i am sorry for your loss , but to put your trust in rock county , they do respond to cell phones hang ups , one day and officer showed up at my house , and asked if we placed a 911 call on a cell phone i stated no, he asked me who my cell phone carrier was, i told him , a couple of minutes later he appeared again, said they recieved another one showing it was coming from the area my house was in, he then asked to see my cell phones, i gave them to him, he then returned to his car, and came back a third time , and asked for every name of every person that lived in my house, it appeared they were checking the cell phone company to make sure no one living in my home had a registered cell phone through this company, he apologizes several times , but explained they take 911 hang ups seriously , he also went to all my neighbors homes , stopped a car that had driven past a couple of times,walked the neighborhood a couple of times sat here another 45 mins before he finally left , but even after doing all this you could tell he was upset he couldnt locate where the phone call came from , and asked eveyrone of us to be more alert then normal, i for one was very impressed with all his efforts

Saying the dispatcher "got her killed" is incorrect. The lunatic who killed her is responsible. The dispatcher is clearly in the wrong and should be fired and hopefully has to live with their negligence and does owe the family an apology. We will never know if she had talked to a 911 dispatcher what would have happened. I've called 911 on someone and it took 15 minutes for the police to respond! It's a sad and tradgic thing that happened to that poor girl; I have a 23 year old neice living in Madison and this could have been her.

officerfriendly, I was talking about if guns didn't even exist. There wouldn't be as many crimes or killings because it takes more guts to physically attack someone (and energy) than it does to pull a trigger. But no, I wouldn't feel comfortable fighting against someone who was armed, but in that situation, I'd do my darn best to save my own life and therefore would do what I had to do.
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Archer, no I didn't know that so many other states have passed that law. I knew some cities/states have but I didn't realize it was almost all of them.

"I also realize that there *are* places that have passed this law..."
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Not just "places". Do you realize WI is one of only two states in the entire U.S. that doesn't have some kind of concealed carry progam available to law abiding citizens?

TrojanVirus187, if you are comfortable with your bare hands defending yourself against an armed criminal than there is no need for you to carry a concealed handgun. Most people, myself included, are not going to feel comfortable doing that however.

officerfriendy, you make a good point. I'm just not a big fan of guns. It doesn't take guts to pull a trigger but it takes guts to kill or injure somebody with your bare hands.

TrojanVirus187, what should scare you is that more than likely you've already had hardened criminals carrying guns illegally in your store. Law abiding armed citizens are not the ones you should be afraid of. It may just be the law abiding armed citizen that saves your life someday.

i agree the dispatcher should be fired,going to get back to it later,what was this person thinking. if this was my relative i would be very upset. this girls family should file suit, at least to get this person fired, what if this happens again with this dispatcher? my condolences to the family.

when I was a kid, I accidentally called 911 and hung up because I didn't think anything would happen. They called back, I explained it was an accident yet they still came out to investigate. I felt like an idiot and got in trouble, but looking back on it, if I was in real trouble the rock county police did what they had to. so I'm glad that they actually do their job here.

As a person who works in retail [aka with the public] it scares the living poop out of me to think of what *could* happen if people are allowed to carry concealed weapons. Do you people realize how many angry people are out there? I realize that if someone wants to carry a gun, they're going to carry one regardless of the law. I also realize that there *are* places that have passed this law BUT at the same time, just thinking about angry customers having a gun and it BEING OK scares me!

"Mob rule" ........"old west"
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These are just old, worn-out cliches that have nothing to do with locales that have concealed carry..
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Stop with the irrelevant propaganda please.

Maybe I am always the optomist, but I don't think Rock county was trying to say 'oh we are so much better than Dane county'
I could be wrong (it happens once in a blue moon) but maybe what the county and the Gazette were trying to do with this article is give the residents of Rock county a piece of mind. By letting people know that we have the technology to avoid this kind of an incident the residents of Rock county might be able to feel a little safer.

In a city where you are not allowed to defend yourself with a "short-barrelled handgun" the police BETTER respond to each and every abandoned 911 call. The Madison city council should be the ones apologizing.

Holy cow. after reading all the comments , i had to read the story again. I did NOT see any mention of concealed carry in the entire article. Does the majority of people want to go back to the days of the Old West? We gonna go back to mob rule? sheeeeeeeeeeeesh! the heck with forward progress? just turn to animals. What the heck is this world coming to? Hopefully, we DO have people who haven't lost their common sense.

FIRST of all, I don't know why the article has to come down to "our call center is better than your call center," that's childish.

SECOND of all, I was left with my jaw dropped at the end of the article. How does this Wray guy say things like:

"It would be accurate to state that there is evidence contained in the call, which should have resulted in a Madison police officer being dispatched,” “The 911 center did not call back to the telephone number, Madison police were not notified and no officer was sent.”

and

"The dispatcher didn’t call back. It was waiting in the queue and intended to get back to it later,”

and

"This was not an accidental 911 call, it was not an intentionally erroneous call, nor was it a hang-up call,”

and THEN have the nerve to say"

“I don’t think there’s anything to apologize for at this time.”

I'll be if that was his daughter he'd expect at the VERY LEAST some form of apology and taking responsibility...

And even if she still didn't make it she may have been able to kill the person that killed her.... and then at least a piece of trash murderer would be off the streets and not in vain of an innocent beautiful young lady. I don't really know if the call had even gotten a police response, if it would have saved her but I really think the gun could have at least helped, that is, if she had even owned one. *sigh* This is so sad. :(

Concealed carry is a separate issue. But had this young lady been given the opportunity to be a legal concealed carry permit holder, she could have had the means to protect herself instead of becoming a victim. Maybe she would have decided not to own a firearm anyway, who knows. But at least it would have been her choice. It offends me that the powers that be in WI do not trust or respect it's law abiding citizens enough to allow them to protect their own lives.

Yeah just look how much good the gun ban in DC is doing! Crime is higher than ever. I don't want to turn this into a gun debate, but she would probably still be alive if she had a pistol.

I smell lawsuit. It's a good thing we pay for the 911 call center in the taxes on our phone bills (land and cell) so stuff like this doesn't happen. This is just sickening. That girl tried to get help and was let down. I'm all for concealed carry.

Forget concealed carry, heck you can't even own a concealable handgun in Madison!
25.02 POSSESSION OF SHORT-BARRELLED HANDGUNS PROHIBITED.
(1) Statement of Intent . The Common Council of the City of Madison finds and determines that handguns play a major role in the commission of homicide, aggravated assault, and armed robbery, and accidental injury and death; that the easy and convenient availability of certain types of handguns has increased the potential for firearm-related deaths and injuries; and that in order to promote and protect the health, safety and welfare of the public it is necessary to regulate the possession of certain handguns which because of their size are particularly easy to conceal on or about the person, thereby making them extremely dangerous to the health, safety and security of the citizens of Madison and particularly dangerous in the hands of criminals. It is the intent of the Common Council, therefore, to prohibit the possession of short-barrelled handguns within the jurisdiction of the City of Madison.

Oh yeah. Our Rock County 911 center would have handled it alright. Just like they handled all the calls during the blizzard when thousands of cars were stuck on the interstate. They shouldn't even be commenting on another county's procedures. And yes, concealed carry is a totally separate issue to this story.

True.

Does the concealed carry law even come in to discussion in this situation? Several of you are saying "if only"... I have guns in my house and I don't need the concealed carry law in the example of this poor young lady. She was in her apartment and she would not have needed the concealed carry law to pop the perp.

That operator messed up.
Sounds like she got to a phone. That means she could have probably have gotten to a gun. If she would have had one, would she be alive today? If so there wouldn't be a murderer running around right now. Write your representatives, tell them you support a conceal carry law. Teach your kids to shoot people.

I don't know if "lazy" is the right word to use. YES, it's tragic. But the article states that the dispatcher answered another call which was already in the queue and fully intended on following up. IT IS A GREAT TRAGEDY, but it's also possible that Dane County does not employ enough dispatchers to handle the call traffic, and this would not have occurred if there were another dispatcher on duty.

Hindsight is 20/20. I'm very sorry about the news. But I'm not entirely certain that had the same situation happened here in Rock County that the human error component can be overcome by technology.

I agree that the employee should be placed on warning and/or have training opportunity made available.

jviers77 - THAT is exactly what I was thinking! Norwick must think very highly of himself to take such an arrogant attitude. "....reviewing whether policies should be changed"????

Also, Norwick's statements saying he didn't think there was anything to apologize for are insensitive and ill-formed. I hope he and the lazy employee are reprimanded at the very least.

I couldn't believe this when I heard it yesterday. I work in an office building. If anybody accidentally dials 911 while attempting to call out of the building, the police show up within a half-hour to check on things. I was under the impression this was protocol. I now understand there is a posibility Zimmerman did speak in the call but because the 911 operator didn't hear her, she hung up. The operator also did not call the number back, which is also something they are supposed to do on any unresponsive call.
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This was a horrible tragedy made exponentially worse by the botched job of the Dane County 911 center. Now Brittany's family and friends will have to wonder if something could've been done to help her.

Concealed carry would result in more deaths...of criminals. Concealed carry should have been passed a long time ago. Would give the average citizen the chance to survive if they are attacked. Plus it makes criminals think twice before they do something. People need to stop thinking this stuff can't happen to them or it only happens in big cities and be prepared for when it does happen to them.

Way to go Dane county 911! This is a perfect example of why a concealed carry law is important. In a life or death situation chances are the police are not going to be there in time to help you, if they show up at all. People assume the police are there to protect them, when in reality they are usually picking up the pieces after wards. They may catch this poor girls killer, and I hope they do. But personally I would rather see her living her life and her attacker pushing up daisies.