INDIANAPOLIS — A Marion County 911 dispatcher, several months into the job, answered the call to help keep a FedEx employee safe during the mayhem of the mass shooting at the facility on April 15.
The employee, Amber Casares, reached out to FOX59 to ask for assistance to meet the dispatcher, Angela Marriner. Eight days after the shooting, as Angela began her shift at the Marion County 911 Center, the two finally met in person.
“I appreciate you staying with me on the phone,” Amber tearfully said to Angela.
“I was just doing what I was trained to do, and I would do it again in a heartbeat for anybody,” Angela replied.
Amber has worked for FedEx for eight years. Last Thursday, she was at work early for her shift that begins at 11:30 p.m.
“Just a normal day, then after that, we heard what sounded like banging on our windows, on the outside to the parking lot,” Amber recalled.
She said her co-worker got up to look outside the window.
“A couple minutes after that is when we heard what we thought at first was a pallet dropping and then we heard another one,” Amber said. “Then we heard more and then at that point, that’s when I looked at him and he just gave me this look of, ‘those are gunshots.’ He told us immediately to turn off the light and hide.”
Amber said she reached for her cell phone in her lunch box and quickly dialed 911. That is when Angela answered the phone.
“I knew how scared she was, and terrified, I could hear it in her voice,” Angela said. “I was just trying to do my job and try to keep her as calm as possible, keep her relaying information to me so I could give that information to the officers.”
Amber said Angela asked her if she wanted her to stay with her on the phone, and Amber said ‘yes.’
“I was scared to the point where I didn’t want to be left alone,” Amber explained. “I wasn’t alone, but I really just wanted her to stay on the phone with us. In the bad case, if anything happened, I wanted her to, you know, tell my family that I loved them or something cause we didn’t know where he was.”
Angela stayed on the phone with Amber for 33 minutes until police arrived.
“It felt like a lifetime in there though,” Amber said. “It felt so long. I didn’t, especially not knowing where he was, it made it feel longer. I didn’t know if he was going to be able to get to me and my co-workers in there.”
As the chaos around and inside the FedEx facility raged, Angela’s voice helped Amber remain steady and calm.
“I just wanted you to know that you guys were safe, and somebody was coming for you,” Angela said to Amber.
Again, Angela was only on the job for a few months when she answered this important call. The Marion County Sheriff’s Office has some dispatcher positions to fill. You can find out more information about these roles at www.governmentjobs.com/careers/mcso/.
