Judge rules for Black Buffalo police officer fired for stopping colleague's chokehold
Rebecca Falconer
Wed, April 14, 2021, 2:01 AM
A New York court on Tuesday reinstated the pension of former Buffalo police officer Cariol Horne, who was fired for intervening when a white colleague had a Black man in a chokehold during a 2006 arrest.
Driving the news: State Supreme Court Judge Dennis Ward
noted in his ruling similar cases, like the death of
George Floyd. Ward said the role of other officers at the scene in such instances had come under scrutiny, "particularly their complicity in failing to intervene to save the life of a person to whom such unreasonable physical force is being applied."
"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."
Judge Ward
- Ward partially based his decision to overturn a 2010 ruling that upheld her firing on legislation signed by Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown in October, known as "Cariol's Law" — which makes it a "crime for a law enforcement officer to fail to intervene when another officer is using excessive force and also protects whistleblowers," per the Buffalo News.
The big picture: Horne, who is Black, said she heard the handcuffed man say he couldn't breathe — invoking the deaths in police custody of Floyd and
Eric Garner, two Black men who said this in their dying words, which have become a "national rallying cry against police brutality," the
New York Times notes.
- Horne said her fellow officer punched her in the face when she tried to stop him.
- The Buffalo Police Department claimed she had put her fellow officers at risk and she was fired in 2008, per NPR.
- There was no video of the incident
A New York court on Tuesday reinstated the pension of former Buffalo police officer Cariol Horne, who was fired for intervening when a white colleague had a Black man in a chokehold during a 2006 arrest.Driving the news: State Supreme Court Judge Dennis Ward noted in his ruling similar cases...
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