Following a disciplinary hearing, the 911 dispatcher accused of hanging up on a caller reporting the mass shooting inside the Tops supermarket in Buffalo, New York, last month was terminated.
According to Peter Anderson, a spokesman for the Erie County Executive’s office, the dispatcher, who had spent eight years with the Erie County Central Police Services Department, had been on administrative leave since May 16 “while the mishandled call was investigated.”
On Thursday, Anderson said the dispatcher was fired and was no longer employed as an Erie County police complaint writer. The Buffalo News identified the terminated employee as Sheila E. Ayers, even though she was not named by the department.
As the suspected gunman opened fire on May 14, Ayers, 54, answered the 911 call from Latisha Rogers, an assistant office manager at the Tops Friendly Market on Jefferson Avenue. Rogers subsequently told news reporters that when she heard gunshots, she hid behind the store’s customer service desk, dialed 911 and claimed that Ayers scolded her for whispering into her cell phone.
“I called 911, I go through the whole operator and everything, the dispatcher comes on, and I’m whispering to her, and I said ‘Miss, please send help to 1275 Jefferson there is a shooter in the store’,” Rogers told WZZM. “She proceeded in a very nasty tone and said, ‘I can’t hear you. Why are you whispering? You don’t have to whisper. They can’t hear you.”
“So, I continued to whisper, and I said, ‘ma’am, he’s still in the store, he’s still shooting! I’m scared for my life. Please send help’,” Rogers added. “Out of nervousness, my phone fell out of my hand, she said something I couldn’t make out, and then the phone hung up.”
The dispatcher’s handling of the call, Anderson previously told Fox News Digital, “had no bearing on the dispatching of the call,” which was routed for “an immediate police response within 30 seconds.”
Last month, County Executive Marc Poloncarz described the employee’s handling of the 911 call as “completely unacceptable” and said that the county would seek to terminate them.
On Thursday, The Civil Service Employees Association, which represents dispatchers, said that disciplinary due process requirements were “followed fairly and appropriately here.”
According to Buffalo News, the dispatcher said she was sorry for the caller’s ordeal during the shooting.
Ayers was fired on the same day that Gendron pleaded not guilty to new hate-motivated domestic terrorism and other charges.
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