R&I – TxPAT.
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.
“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.
“Neal Mack looked like he was about to die,” Horne told CBS This Morning in an interview last year. “So had I not stepped in, he possibly could have. He was handcuffed and being choked.”
She was ultimately fired in 2008, mere months before she was eligible to receive her full pension.
Kwiatkowski sued Horne and her lawyer for defamation. In 2011, a judge found that Horne’s lawyer made eight statements that were considered defamatory and false, including the claim that Horne “saved the life of a suspect who was already in handcuffs and was being choked out by officer Greg Kwiatkowski.”
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