Court Vindicates Black Officer Fired for Stopping Colleague’s Chokehold

Cariol Horne acted to keep a white officer from using what she saw as excessive force. Fifteen years later, a judge said her firing was wrong.

By Jonah E. Bromwich
Published April 13, 2021
Updated April 14, 2021, 9:03 a.m. ET

It was a cold November day in Buffalo when Officer Cariol Horne responded to a call for a colleague in need of help. What she encountered was a white officer who appeared to be “in a rage” punching a handcuffed Black man in the face repeatedly as other officers stood by.

Officer Horne, who is Black, heard the handcuffed man say he could not breathe and saw the white officer put him in a chokehold. At that point, court documents show, she forcibly removed the white officer and began to trade blows with him.

In the altercation’s aftermath, Officer Horne was reassigned, hit with departmental charges and, eventually, fired just one year short of the 20 on the force she needed to collect her full pension. She tried, and failed, more than once to have the decision reversed as unfair.

On Tuesday, in an outcome explicitly informed by the police killing of George Floyd, a state court judge vacated an earlier ruling that affirmed her firing, essentially rewriting the end of her police career, and granting her the back pay and benefits she had previously been denied.

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Former Buffalo officer who stopped fellow cop's chokehold on suspect will get pension after winning lawsuit

BY APRIL SIESE
APRIL 14, 2021 / 4:32 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 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."

"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," Ward wrote.

Horne gained national attention in 2006 when she said she stopped officer Greg Kwiatkowski's chokehold on Neal Mack.

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