More details continue to unfold about this past weekend’s mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y. As previously reported, Latisha, a Tops employee who survived the tragic occurrence at the Jefferson Avenue supermarket on Saturday (May 14), claimed that a 911 dispatcher hung up on her because she was whispering on the call. New reports have now revealed the 911 dispatcher has been placed on administrative leave pending a disciplinary hearing.
Latisha, who was working as an assistant manager at the supermarket at the time of the shooting, called 911 to get help and was whispering during the call because she feared the shooter would hear her. “He just wouldn’t stop so I tried to call 911 and I was whispering because I could hear him close by… when I whispered on the phone to 911, the dispatcher started yelling at me, saying, ‘Why are you whispering, you don’t have to whisper,’” she told Buffalo news station WGRZ.
“And I’m trying to tell her, like, ‘Ma’am he’s in the store, he’s shooting, he’s an active shooter, I’m scared for my life’ and she said something crazy to me and then she hung up in my face. I had to call my boyfriend and tell him to call 911,” Latisha added.
Erie County, which runs the 911 communications center through Central Police Services, confirmed this incident is being investigated and “immediate action was taken and the individual who took that call is now on administrative leave pending a disciplinary hearing, which should happen within a couple of weeks.”
In related news, a New York State correction officer has been suspended without pay after posting a cruel meme on social media mocking the victims of Saturday’s shooting. The meme was posted to Facebook and joked that a “clean up” was needed in the aisles of the Tops store in Buffalo, accompanied with a caption that read: “Too soon? This should weed out some FB friends.”