Black Buffalo cop who stopped white officer from choking handcuffed Black suspect gets pension back 13 years after being fired Joseph Wilkinson
A former Buffalo police officer who fought a fellow cop who put a handcuffed suspect in a chokehold will receive more than a decade’s worth of back pay and a full pension.
Cariol Horne, a 53-year-old Black woman, intervened in 2006 to stop a white colleague, Greg Kwiatkowski, who was violently arresting a Black suspect, Neal Mack.
The Buffalo Police Department ruled in Kwiatkowski’s favor in a 2007 internal investigation, and Horne was fired in 2008. She was terminated one year shy of the 20 years of service needed to retire with a full pension.
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.
"We don't want other officers to go through what I've gone through," she told CBS News' Jericka Duncan after a judge ruled her pension must be reinstated.