A 911 dispatcher, who received a desperate call from a grocery store employee during the mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, on May 14, has been fired after being accused of hanging up on the caller, The Washington Post reports. The complaint, according to WZZM 13, came from Latisha Rogers, an assistant office manager at Tops supermarket.

Speaking to WZZM 13, Rogers said she pulled her cell phone out of her back pocket and called 911 when she heard gunshots that wouldn’t stop. She then whispered to the dispatcher while hiding behind a customer service counter as the shooter was gunning down people in the store, killing 10 of them. The call taker, according to Rogers, dismissed her in “a very nasty tone.”

“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 the newsstation. “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.”

The Erie County dispatcher was placed on administrative leave on May 16. Speaking to reporters in May, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said the county’s intention was “to terminate the 911 call taker who acted totally inappropriately, not following protocol.”

The Buffalo News identified the dispatcher as Sheila E. Ayers, who worked eight years as a 911 call taker with Erie County’s Central Police Services Department. Ayers was working in the Enhanced 911 call center on the day of the shooting. She was terminated after her disciplinary hearing on Thursday.

“She was yelling at me, saying, ‘Why are you whispering? You don’t have to whisper,’” Rogers told The Buffalo News. “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.”

Ayers defended herself when she spoke with The Buffalo News. The terminated dispatcher said she was sorry about what Rogers experienced during the shooting, but the caller has changed her story “multiple times.” 

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

When a caller whispers during an emergency call, dispatchers are trained to recognize that the person is likely in danger, Poloncarz said. The call taker’s response to Rogers was “completely unacceptable,” Poloncarz told The Buffalo News.