Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, county officials, law enforcement and fire and EMS officials attended the call center’s dedication ceremony.
Credit: Bill Lackey
Credit: Bill Lackey
Clark County Commissioner Melanie Flax Wilt said this week’s Northwestern school bus crash illustrating the need for a combined 911 center.
“One student lost his life in that accident and more were transported to Dayton Children’s. Within moments, nine different units were dispatched the scene,” she said. “That coordination is possible through this joint dispatch system. All of our police fire and EMS are working on the same system and receive the same information.”
She said a German Twp. trustee told her: “We can’t control the accident, but we can control our response to it. And he said our response was exactly what was needed and this community needed at that time.”
During the event Friday, DeWine said he thinks dedicating the center to the two fallen deputies is appropriate and the right thing to do.
“Having a center like this is just so very, very important... Having them in one room it’s just a huge, huge advancement,” he said. “I think it’s really appropriate that a center that’s dedicated to saving lives is being named after Deputy Yates and Deputy Hopper, who worked hard every day during their careers to protect us and protect people in the county.”
Tracy Yates, Deputy Yates’ wife, also attended and spoke during the dedication.
“I would just like to thank everyone that made this possible. It’s such an honor to see this center dedicated for Matt and Suzanne,” she said. “It just shows how great of a community we have here.”
Yates, 41, was shot and killed on July 24, 2022, after he responded to a trailer at the Harmony Estates to help after a report of a shooting.
Investigators later determined that Cole White, 27, shot and killed his mother, Jodie Arbuckle, 47, and then ambushed Yates as deputies entered the trailer. Arbuckle went to the trailer to check on her son, who had mental health issues. White engaged in a standoff with law enforcement for hours before teams could remove Yates’ body. The trailer erupted in flames shortly after.
Since then, the deputy has been commemorated in memorial benches, dedicated rooms, a dedicated road, memorial walls, Deputy Matthew Yates Day, and, on Friday, the 911 center was dedicated in his honor, along with Hopper.
Hopper, 40, was shot on Jan. 1, 2011, after responding to a call about shots fired into a camper at the Enon Beach Campground. She was ambushed by Michael Ferryman, a man who’d been found not guilty by reason of insanity following a violent encounter with law enforcement in Morgan County a decade earlier.
Dozens of officers and deputies from surrounding jurisdictions responded to the officer down call and engaged in a shootout with Ferryman, who fired upon anyone attempting to help Hopper. Ferryman was killed in the shootout.
Since then, a stretch of Interstate 70 is named for her, her name is etched among 20,000 other fallen officers at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington D.C., and an Ohio law created in her honor has improved officer safety by better informing them about individuals with mental illness.
The 911 call center project broke ground in 2020 with an aim to connect emergency services throughout the county.
In January 2021, the city of Springfield and Clark County merged their 911 dispatch departments. A combined dispatch center for the county has been in talks for decades, and Clark County announced in 2017 that it would build a 911 dispatch center that will allow residents to text, send pictures and videos to dispatchers.
The Clark County Sheriff’s Office is managing the $5 million, 7,000-square-foot dispatch center, office and training facility. The center is located at 523 Home Road, in the former Clark County Department of Job and Family Services Children’s Home.
The center brings the county into accordance with Ohio’s Next Generation 911 requirement that calls for dispatch services to become more advanced.
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