A Buffalo supermarket worker dialed 911 during the massacre and was asked, 'Why are you whispering?' Now, the dispatcher is set to be fired, an official said - CNN

He is being held without bail at least until his next court appearance June 9.

'Why are you whispering?'

Rogers was at the supermarket's service desk with two coworkers, on the phone with a customer, when she heard "large booms" in quick succession, she told CNN.

"I look up out the window and I saw this customer, this lady with her shopping cart -- she just stopped -- and she just had this really funny look on her face and then she just turned to run," Rogers said.

"Next thing you know, you just keep hearing boom, boom, boom," she said.

"All we could do was just drop to the ground."

Rogers hid behind the counter, "praying that he didn't see me," she said of the shooter.

The dispatcher kept speaking, but Rogers couldn't make out the words.

"She said something and then she hung up the phone," said Rogers, who then switched her phone to silent in case anyone rang.

Next, Rogers dialed her boyfriend and, in the same tone she used with the dispatcher, asked him to call 911 to report there was "a person in the store shooting." Then, a coworker rang Rogers on a video call to ask where she was, and in that same hush, she relayed her location and asked her to call 911.

When that call ended, Rogers noticed the store had gone "dead silent," she said.

Even the music somehow had gone offline.

"It's just a complete, eerie, creepy, silence in the store and you can hear him walking around," she said.

And I knew it was him, by his uniform."

"To see what I saw, I would never want nobody to ever experience that, ever."

911 call under investigation

The 911 dispatcher who spoke with Rogers was put on administrative leave Monday, Erie County officials said.

It wasn't clear who ended the call, but "the 911 operator was inappropriate," County Executive Mark Poloncarz said Wednesday at a news conference.

"We teach our 911 call takers that if someone is whispering, it probably means they are in trouble" and the caller may be in "an area of concern, not just with regards to active shooters but potentially with regards to domestic violence that someone may be calling," he said.

A May 30 hearing will be held "in which our intention is to terminate the 911 call taker who acted totally inappropriately, not following protocol," he said, reiterating the dispatcher's tone was a "completely inappropriate response" in a "terrible situation."

The dispatcher's name would not be released, due to department standards regarding anyone under administrative suspension or leave, Poloncarz said.

Law enforcement response time to the shooting was not affected by the handling of Rogers' call, Erie County spokesman Peter Anderson said Wednesday.

Central Police Services on Sunday went through all calls associated with the shooting, Poloncarz explained.