An assistant manager at the Buffalo supermarket where a white supremacist fatally shot 10 Black shoppers is speaking out about her experience with a 911 dispatcher. 

The employee, identified only as Latisha, says the dispatcher hung up on her as she called for help while inside the Tops Market on Jefferson Avenue store during Saturday’s massacre shooting, 2 On Your Side reports. 

People gather outside of Tops market on May 15, 2022 in Buffalo, New York. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Latisha told the news outlet that she hid from 18-year-old gunman Payton Gendron as he carried out the deadly, racially-motivated attack. 

“I tried to call 911, and I was whispering because I could hear him close by,” Latisha said. “And when I whispered on the phone to 911, the dispatcher started yelling at me saying ‘Why are you whispering? You don’t have to whisper.’ And I’m trying to tell her like, ‘Ma’am, he’s in the store. He’s shooting. It’s an active shooter. I’m scared for my life.’ And she said something crazy to me and then she hung up in my face. And I had to call my boyfriend to call 911.”

The dispatcher has reportedly been placed on administrative leave amid an investigation into her conduct. 

Gendron reportedly drove about 200 miles from his hometown of Conklin, New York to the predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo to fulfill his deadly desire to “save the white” race, as outlined in his 180-page manifesto. 

As reported by The Associated Press, the gunman live-streamed the shooting through a camera affixed to his helmet. The video showed Gendron dressed in military gear, pulling up to the front of the store with a rifle on the front seat and then pointing the rifle at people in the parking lot as he exited the vehicle and opened fire.  

For Latisha, the supermarket shooting brings back haunting memories of her beloved brother, Danyell Mackin, 30, who was the victim of the City Grill shooting in 2010, when a gunman fatally shot four people at the restaurant. 

“I was there when that happened,” Latisha said. “And that was a massacre, and now I have to relive a whole other massacre.”

The shooting has left Latisha understandably traumatized to the point where she won’t be able to go back to work at Tops, according to the report. 

Payton Gendron appears during his arraignment in Buffalo City Court, Saturday, May 14, 2022, in Buffalo, N.Y. (Mark Mulville/The Buffalo News via AP)

“I know a lot of the regulars,” Latisha said. “I know a lot of residents that come in there. I’ve been here for three years. That store is very important to that community. I didn’t realize how important it was until I started working there. They love that store. That is just a traumatic experience to have in that community like that.”

According to the report, the 911 calls made during the mass shooting have not been publicly released as per New York state law; it usually takes a court order for members of the media to access these records. 

Per 2 On Your Side, Erie County handles the 911 communications center through Central Police Services, and officials have confirmed that “immediate action was taken against the individual” who took Latisha’s call, and that particular dispatcher is on “administrative leave pending a disciplinary hearing, which should happen within a couple of weeks.”

Pending the results of the investigation, the dispatcher could be fired or face further disciplinary action.

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