Cop's new role: Dispatch 911 mishaps Lt. Paul Ebel's background with the police department should help ensure correct responses to 911 calls By Monique Balas News-Chronicle When Green Bay police Lt. Paul Ebel takes over as interim communications manager of the county's joint emergency call center Monday, he hopes to avoid the type of 911 call mishaps that severely delayed officers from getting to an accident scene May 18. Ebel, who has worked as a police dispatcher and an officer, will be able to fill the missing law-enforcement link at the Brown County Public Safety Communications Center, which has been without such a position since the county merged its dispatch centers in 2001. "By bringing Paul in, what he can bring is knowing how (police) operate, why they operate in a certain way, issues that officers raise," said center director Dave Tellock. "The officers had a good sense that, being somebody from their own department, he's really going to know what their needs and concerns are." On the night of May 18, motorcycle rider James Hileman was injured in a crash at Oneida and Mason streets at about 5:30 p.m. An ambulance responded to the 911 call and took Hileman to St. Vincent Hospital, but police did not arrive to investigate the accident until after 11 p.m. after Hileman's family called the police. "The family called and wanted information. We checked out the scene, and, sure enough, we found blood and debris," said Lt. Bill Galvin, a public information officer for the Green Bay Police Department. One-third of the city's police cars were tied up already, because the call came during the time officers were responding to a suicide at the home of Green Bay Packers assistant coach Ray Sherman, Galvin said. Because of confusion related to the lack of squad cars and the fact the dispatcher received two separate calls on the motorcycle accident, no officers were sent to the scene. Tellock said such incidents are rare, and this one was due to circumstances and miscommunication. Ebel met with communications supervisors in a two-hour meeting Thursday to discuss how to prevent similar situations. "When it comes to verifying a call that is a duplicate call, I will require that a dispatcher or supervisor that is closing that call verify that an officer is indeed on scene or en route," Ebel said. "As a call taker or dispatcher, the law-enforcement side of the equation is, as a police officer you know what you're looking for when going to a call, you know what resources you need." If an officer is not dispatched to the scene of an accident, Ebel will require each dispatcher to specify the reason why no officer was sent. "If they're not going to send a police officer to a call, they will have to note in the notes of that call why they are not sending a police officer. And they'll have to make sure that is OK'd by supervisors there," Ebel said. But once the six months are up and his replacement is found, Ebel said he looks forward to returning to his regular duties. "I'm a cop; that's my career," he said. "I'm a police officer, and I love my job."