As she lay on the floor, behind the customer service counter where she hid while a white supremacist was actively shooting inside the Tops supermarket, she dialed 911.
Latisha Rogers, an assistant office manager at the Jefferson Avenue store, whispered into the phone with the 911 call taker, hoping to remain unnoticed by the shooter but wanting to alert police to the tragedy that was unfolding.
"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."Â
Rogers said she then called her boyfriend and told him to call 911.
"I felt that lady left me to die yesterday," Rogers told The Buffalo News on Sunday, as she waited for a worship service to start at True Bethel Baptist Church.
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Governor Kathy Hochul addresses the congregation at True Bethel Baptist Church the day after the mass shooting at Tops supermarket on Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo.
In response to Rogers' statements, Poloncarz said Wednesday that Central Police Services reviewed all 911 call recordings on Saturday related to the Tops shooting, then placed the call taker in question on administrative leave on Monday. Â
It was unclear who ended the emergency call, he said, but nevertheless, what the call taker did was "completely unacceptable." She has been place on paid administrative leave Monday, as required under union rules, pending a disciplinary hearing May 30.
"Our intention is to terminate the 911 call taker who acted totally inappropriately, not following protocol," he said. "We teach our 911 call takers that if somebody's whispering, it probably means they are in trouble."
That's often the case not just with active shooters but cases related to domestic violence, he said. Â
Ten people were killed and three others wounded in the mass shooting at Tops on May 14. Police have charged Payton Gendron, 18, of Conklin, with first-degree murder.Â
Central Police Services communications division employees staff the E911 Center at the Erie County Public Safety Campus located in Buffalo.
"I can't sleep. I can eat a little bit, but I just keep hearing gunshots and just seeing the bodies," said the employee, who wished to give only her first name, Latisha.Â
CSEA Local 815 Erie Unit, which represents the county's dispatchers, said it does typically not comment on disciplinary actions.
Per the workers' contract, an employee covered under the agreement "shall not be disciplined or discharged except for incompetency or misconduct while performing his/her duties." An employee also can seek review of the discipline or discharge by initiating an appeal, the agreement states.
As for whether the 911 call recording will be publicly released, Poloncarz said Wednesday he expects to release both the transcript and recording eventually. However, the County Attorney's Office later said that information would not be released because New York county law forbids its release to the public.
Many other states, including Florida, Illinois and Maryland, allow for public inspection of 911 call recordings or transcripts.
Rogers made it out of the store alive but her co-worker Aaron Salter, a retired Buffalo police officer who worked as a security guard at Tops, did not.Â
Salter pulled out his weapon and confronted the shooter. Even though one of Salter's bullets struck the gunman, the shooter's armor plating protected him, allowing him to return Salter's fire and kill him.
"He just came to do his job," Rogers said of Salter.
Buffalo police did respond to the scene in less than two minutes, which Mayor Byron W. Brown and top law enforcement officials said saved a lot of lives.
Staff reporter Sandra Tan contributed to this story.
Jon Harris can be reached at 716-849-3482 or jharris@buffnews.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ByJonHarris.
Jon Harris
Reporter
