Cariol Horne, a former Buffalo Police officer who was fired for intervening when a White officer attempted to choke a Black suspect will receive her pension after winning a lawsuit on Tuesday.
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 in his decision.
Horne gained national attention in 2006 when she stopped officer Greg Kwiatkowski’s chokehold on Neal Mack.
“Neal Mack looked like he was about to die,” Horne told reporters in 2020. “So had I not stepped in, he possibly could have. He was handcuffed and being choked.”
Horne served on the Buffalo police force for 19 of the 20 years required to receive a pension. She was ultimately fired in 2008, mere months before she was eligible to receive her full pension.
“The message was sent that you don’t cross that blue line and so some officers — many officers don’t,” Horne said in a 2020 interview with CNN.
“I had five children and I lost everything but [the suspect] did not lose his life,” Horne said then. “So, if I have nothing else to live for in life, at least I can know that I did the right thing and that [he] still breathes.”
Judge Ward referenced Buffalo lawmakers who penned a law obligating police officers to intervene in instances of excessive force and named the legislation after Horne. In so doing, Ward wrote, the city “has thus already determined that Officer Horne intervened to save the life of a civilian.
Horne addressed the court decision in a statement issued through her attorney.
“My vindication comes at a 15 year cost, but what has been gained could not be measured,” she said. “I never wanted another Police Officer to go through what I had gone through for doing the right thing.”
She called on lawmakers nationwide to pass similar legislation to Buffalo’s “Cariol’s Law,” which obligates officers to intervene and seeks to legally protect those who do.
