By April Siese
April 15, 2021 / 7:06 AM / CBS News
A former Buffalo Police officer who said she was fired for intervening when a White officer attempted to choke a Black suspect will receive her pension after winning a lawsuit on Tuesday. The New York State Supreme Court vacated a previous ruling upholding the firing of Cariol Horne, CBS Buffalo affiliate WIVB-TV reports.
In his ruling, Judge Dennis Ward wrote that the City of Buffalo has recognized the error and has acknowledged the need to undo an injustice from the past. The legal system can at the very least be the mechanism to help justice prevail, even if belatedly.
by Ajamu Baraka / April 14th, 2021
The fix was in. The U.S. state was determined to demonstrate to the world that its system was able to render “justice” to its captive African/Black population.
So, unlike in the handful of cases where charges were brought against police officers for killing a Black or Brown person, the prosecutors this time did not pretend to follow the demands of the ill-informed public to bring charges of first degree or second-degree murder that would set a bar for conviction so high, it could not be met. That is a favorite strategy of prosecutors when conviction is not what they are looking for.
Judge Rules In Favor of Black Officer Who Fought for 15 Years to Receive Pension After Being Fired for Stopping White Colleague from Choking Black Man
An ex-Buffalo police officer who was terminated nearly 15 years ago after intervening while her colleague carried out a chokehold on a handcuffed Black man will receive a full pension, a New York judge ruled on Wednesday, April 14.
Cariol Horne was fired, faced departmental charges and was left without a pension after she forcibly removed her white colleague from a handcuffed Black man he’d placed in a chokehold in 2006.
“To her credit, Officer Horne did not merely stand by, but instead sought to intervene, despite the penalty she ultimately paid for doing so. … She saved a life that day, and history will now record her for the hero she is,” New York Supreme Court Judge Dennis Ward wrote in the ruling.
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A New York Judge ruled Cariol Horne, who was fired in 2008 for intervening when a fellow officer put a Black man in a chokehold, will be given back pay and her pension. Image: Twitter/@ClaudineWgrz
A New York judge ruled that a former Black female police officer in Buffalo who was fired in 2008 after intervening when a white officer placed a suspect in a chokehold, will receive back pay and her pension.
Cariol Horne was fired following a 2006 incident where she tried to stop a fellow officer from using a chokehold on a handcuffed suspect. When she was fired, Horne had served 19 of the 20 years needed to receive a full pension.
Judge Dennis Ward issued the ruling Tuesday, writing “While the Eric Garners and the George Floyds of the world never had a chance for a “do-over”, at least here the correction can be done.”
Horne was fired from the department in 2006 after trying to stop her partner from choking a suspect. It caused her to lose both her job and her pension. Horne stepped in to stop an officer from killing the suspect and penalized for that action.
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“I don’t want any officer to go through what I have gone through,” Horne said. “I had five children and I lost everything but [the suspect] did not lose his life. So, if I have nothing else to live for in life, at least I can know that I did the right thing and that Neil Mack still breathes.”