911 dispatcher fired after claim she hung up on employee during shooting

A 911 dispatcher has been fired after a Tops employee trapped inside the Buffalo supermarket during last month’s mass shooting that killed 10 people said she was hung up on.

The Erie County dispatcher was placed on administrative leave last month after Latisha Rogers, an assistant office manager at the Tops supermarket, told the Buffalo News and WGRZ that she called 911 and whispered to the dispatcher in hope of making the official aware of the mass shooting unfolding at the grocery store. But instead of assistance in a moment when she was “scared for my life,” Rogers said the 911 dispatcher dismissed her in “a very nasty tone.”

“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 WGRZ. “She proceeded in a very nasty tone and says, ‘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!’ Out of nervousness, my phone fell out of my hand, she said something I couldn’t make out, and then the phone hung up.”

Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz told reporters last month that the county’s intention was “to terminate the 911 call taker who acted totally inappropriately not following protocol.” A county spokesman confirmed in a statement that a hearing took place Thursday, at which the dispatcher, whom the Buffalo News identified as Sheila E. Ayers, was terminated after eight years with Erie County’s Central Police Services Department.

“According to the Erie County Department of Personnel, the individual who was the subject of a disciplinary hearing earlier today is no longer employed as a police complaint writer for Erie County effective as of noon today,” the statement reads.

Ayers, 54, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Post early Saturday.

Before the hearing, she told the News she was sorry for what Rogers experienced, while also claiming the Tops employee had changed her story about the 911 call “multiple times.” She asked the public to withhold judgment before more information was available.

“I’m being attacked for one side of the story,” Ayers said.