Green Bay Reporter

Fond du Lac Fire Chief Peter O’Leary is sounding the alarm about the strain he feels is being placed on first responders with the number of bomb threats the Kiel School District and city of Kiel have recently faced.  

“When these things happen, we have to dedicate resources to it and we call back off-duty personnel,” O’Leary told WeAreGreenBay.com. “Bigger departments will switch fire apparatus and stations and try to move people up and just try to maintain the best control.”

O’Leary added that such conditions can cause first responders to have to work extra hours just to keep up, with each person called to search a building during a bomb threat being unavailable to perform their day-to-day duties.  

“It puts us all at risk in a way we are vulnerable to, and we have to be aware of that,” he told WeAreGreenBay.com. “We have to realize we have limitations.”

While Kiel Police Department officials stress that investigators are working as fast as they can, Police Chief Dave Funkhouser reminds people that the process of finding who is making the bomb threats may not happen as fast as the public would like.

“It is important to remember investigations take time. This is real life, not a television show,” he told WeAreGreenBay.com. “The same technology used to hunt down people making threats can also be used to conceal their identity and location.”