Officials in Erie County say a 911 call taker was terminated after hanging up on a call from inside the Tops supermarket, where 10 innocent people were murdered earlier this month.
Although the phone taker had been put on administrative leave, the county was encouraged for her to be fired. Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz called her conduct “inappropriate” and “unacceptable” last month.
The police complaint writer, according to The Buffalo News, inquired as to why the caller, a Tops employee, was whispering before hanging up.
The hearing ended up taking place behind closed doors, in a private hearing, but county officials would not unveil where it took place.
“It is the priority of Erie County, the county executive and the honorable body of the Legislature to make sure that everybody that has a responsibility in terms of public safety is working for the county is doing that to their utmost ability and it is obvious that that call was not handled in a professional way,” said Legislator April Baskin of Erie County.
Baskin says she has spoken with the county executive’s office about this, and that the call taker’s full record, not only the call from Tops, was considered during the hearing.
“We’re going to ask for further investigations into the full department because this happened more than once in the matter of two weeks on Buffalo’s East Side,” Baskin said.
Transcripts and recordings of the calls have yet to be made public. Local station, News 4 has requested public records to learn how the calls were handled.
