You may be wondering how 911 calls from cell phones are handled in our area following this most recent investigation into the murder of Brittany Zimmerman, and at least in Marathon County, officials say the response procedure isn’t concrete.

A Marathon County Sheriff’s lieutenant says anytime a 911 call comes in from a landline, an officer is automatically sent to the address the call is coming from. But with cell phones, it’s often more difficult and time consuming to determine where the call is coming from, even when a wireless phone is equipped with GPS tracking.

The Marathon County Sheriff’s Department takes a lot of 911 calls. Last month they averaged about 400 calls a day. Last year they had 33,000, the majority of them from cell phones, and nearly a third were hang-ups.

“A lot of our hang-up calls are valid calls,” said Lieutenant Jason Plaza, who oversees Marathon County’s 911 Communications Center. “I would say there are probably five or eight phone calls a day, wireless, that are misdialed.”

So how do dispatchers handle these calls?

“It’ll be my decision, based on what they’ve heard, what’s taking place in the background, whether we dispatch an officer or how we deal with it,” said Toni Nardi, a 911 communications supervisor for Marathon County.

“It’s a tough call sometimes,” Lieutenant Plaza said. “They’re really tough calls.”

Dispatch receives dozens of calls that appear to be non-emergencies each day but those calls generally have to be treated as though they were actual emergencies. But dispatchers say there are things you can do to help them cut down on the number of tough decisions they make every day.

“If you’re home and you have a cell phone and landline, I would dial the landline before I would dial the cell phone,” Plaza said.

That will allow dispatchers to send an officer to your home immediately and avoid deciding whether it’s appropriate to start tracking a cell call.

Dispatchers also recommend you don’t use track phones, because they’re virtually impossible to trace, don’t put 911 in your speed dial, and don’t give old cell phones you no longer use to children because the phone can still dial 911 but can’t be traced.

One more thing – dispatchers say if you misdial 911, don’t hang-up. Instead stay on the line and verify you are safe so officers aren’t dispatched for no reason.