A 911 dispatcher has been placed on leave and could be fired after allegedly hanging up on a caller during Saturday’s mass shooting at the Tops supermarket in Buffalo N.Y.
The unidentified dispatcher is on administrative leave pending a disciplinary hearing set to begin later this month. Mark Poloncarz, an Erie County executive told NBC News that “termination will be sought.”
The investigation comes after a Tops Supermarket employee told Buffalo News that she called 911 while hiding behind the customer service counter during the assault. The employee said the 911 dispatcher shouted at her for whispering during the call and hung up.
“She was yelling at me, saying, ‘Why are you whispering? You don’t have to whisper,'” the employee said, “and I was telling her, ‘Ma’am, he’s still in the store. He’s shooting. I’m scared for my life. I don’t want him to hear me. Can you please send help?’ She got mad at me, hung up in my face.”
The employee then called her boyfriend and told him to call 911.
It is not clear who ended the call but Poloncarz said what the dispatcher did was “completely unacceptable.”
Ten people, all of them Black, were killed during Saturday’s massacre by 18-year-old white nationalist Payton Gendron.
The dispatcher’s actions did not affect officers response time to the call, a county spokesperson said. Officers arrived on the scene one minute after receiving the first 911 call.
