The 911 dispatcher who is accused of hanging up on an employee at Tops supermarket during the mass shooting last month has been fired.
The dispatcher had been placed on paid administrative leave since May 16 pending a disciplinary hearing on May 30.
At the hearing, officials called for the termination of the dispatcher who “acted totally inappropriately, not following protocol,” Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz told CNN.
The investigation comes after Latisha Rogers, the assistant office manager at the Tops Friendly Markets in Buffalo told Buffalo News that she called 911 while hiding behind the customer service counter during the assault. She 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,’” Rogers 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.”
Rogers said she called her boyfriend and told him to call 911.
The gunman, Peyton Gendron, 18, targeted the supermarket because it is located in a predominantly Black neighborhood, officials say. Ten people, all of them Black, were killed during the massacre, three others were injured.
Gendron was indicted by a grand jury this week on several charges including domestic terrorism motivated by hate, first-degree murder, second-degree murder, and attempted murder as a hate crime.
