In 2006, Cariol Horne was a few years shy of her 20th as a cop in Buffalo, New York when she and another officer Gregory Kwiatkowski, a white man, accosted a black suspect.
On the occasion, according to Horne, Officer Kwiatkowski was overly enthusiastic in arresting David Mack.
Kwiatkowski reportedly locked Mack in a chokehold, a situation that prompted Horne’s intervention to free the suspect from the uncomfortable position.
But in 2008, after internal investigations concluded that Horne had acted unduly, she was fired from the Buffalo Police Department, forfeiting her pension in the process.
Brenda McDuffie, president and CEO of the Buffalo Urban League, a New York-based organization committed to the cause of ethnic minorities and other disadvantaged individuals to secure economic self-reliance, parity, power and civil rights, told City and State that Horne was punished for preventing the chokehold on the suspect.
