‘COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE’

911 Dispatcher Fired for Mishandling Call During Buffalo Supermarket Shooting

The dispatcher was terminated after a supermarket manager said the operator asked her not to whisper and hung up on her.

A 911 operator accused of mishandling a call during the deadly Buffalo shooting on May 14 has been fired, the Erie County Department of Personnel confirmed to CNN. Latisha Rogers, the assistant office manager at Tops Friendly Markets, told CNN she ducked behind the store’s service desk and called 911 when gunman Payton S. Gendron, 18, began shooting. The 911 dispatcher, whose name has not been released, asked Rogers why she was whispering, saying “‘What? I can’t hear you. Why are you whispering? You don’t have to whisper, they can’t hear you.’” Rogers said the dispatcher then hung up on her, but the Erie County Department of Central Police Services said it wasn’t clear who hung up. The dispatcher did not follow protocol during the call and her conduct was “completely unacceptable” and “inappropriate,” County Executive Mark Poloncarz told CNN. Ten people were killed and another three were injured in the massacre at the Tops Friendly Markets grocery store.