Muskego Police Advise That Yanking the Land Line Has Effects on 911

We had covered the unveiling of s which set them up for providing cell callers in Muskego with a direct connection to local emergency response. However, the OK needs to come from  County Executive Dan Vrakas' office, which has yet to happen.

In the meantime, Lt. Dave Constantineau wanted to remind residents of the current state of affairs when you need to call 911.

"When you call 911 from your home phone, or 'land line', and you are in Muskego, you are connected directly to our E911 system," he explained.  The E stands for enhanced, which allows Muskego police to immediately receive your name, address and phone number on their computer screen.  This, in turn, allows them to immediately direct help to you whether you are able to talk to us or not. 

"This means that if you call 911 on your home phone, and tell the dispatcher that you need a rescue squad for someone say, having a heart attack, our dispatchers can literally be 'toning out' the rescue squad before you finish the word 'attack,' he added. 

However, that isn't the case when you're using your cell phone.

Currently, when you dial 911, the technology cannot provide the address you are calling from.  It instead provides the latitude and longitude for your location, which is then superimposed over a map, which will give us your location.  This only takes a few seconds, and is generally very accurate.  This is not the problem with cellular 911.  The problem lies in that when you call 911 from your cell phone when you are in Muskego, the call does not go to the Muskego Police Department.  Instead, it goes to the Waukesha County Communication Center in the City of Waukesha.

"The call will be answered by a call taker at WCCC, who will then ask you what your emergency is.  After they determine what your emergency is, and determine that you are in Muskego, they will then call us on one of our non-emergency numbers.  They will advise us of the circumstances and THEN transfer your call to us," Constantineau explained. Earlier, police officials had timed the difference between this current system and a primary system, which eliminates WCCC from the equation and goes direct to MPD.  It was estimated that an average of 87 seconds was saved in getting responders to the scene, which can be an eternity. 

"As you can see, this can add significantly to response time, and when seconds count, any delay can be tragic," Constantineau agreed, and offered a solution to help short cut the time.

As many in Muskego now use cell phones exclusively, he strongly recommended that the non-emergency phone number, 262-679-4130, should be programmed into your cell phone, and use that in an emergency. 

That way, your phone call will come directly to the Muskego Police Department dispatch center, and we can get help to you without delay.  Constantineau said 911 "is still a great system, and hopefully, someday soon, we will be able to receive cellular 911 calls directly into our dispatch center.  Until that time, your fastest response will be to call us directly."