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Former Officer Cariol Horne lost her job and was charged with obstruction after she intervened while a fellow officer punched and choked an arrested man.
In Buffalo, New York a former police officer is fighting for her pension after being fired from the city’s police department for interfering with another officer she claims was abusing an arrested suspect. Cariol Horne was fired from the force in 2006 and charged with obstructing another cop during an arrest over a domestic dispute.
Horne claims that fellow Buffalo officer Gregory Kwiatkowski was abusing a suspect who had already been placed under arrest in handcuffs. “He was handcuffed in the front and he was sideways and being punched in the face by Gregory Kwiatkowski,” explained Horne. Horne said she intervened when she saw Kwiatowski begin to choke the man. “I’m like, ‘Greg! You’re choking him,’ because I thought whatever happened in the house he was still upset about so when he didn’t stop choking him I just grabbed his arm from around Neal Mack’s neck,” said Horne.
ABC reported that Kwiatkowski then turned and punched Horne in the face. She said she needed the bridge of her nose replaced after the blow. The obstruction charge against Horne stated that she “jump[ed] on officer Kwiatkowski’s back and/or [struck] him with her hands.” However, in his own testimony, Kwiatkowski said, “she never got on top of me.”
Horne, a mother of five, has lost every appeal to date but continues to seek a pension for her 19 years of police service. The City of Buffalo Common Council passed the case to the New York State retirement system to be reviewed.
Meanwhile, ABC noted that Kwiatkowski later was forced into retirement following two separate incidents, one in which he punched another officer while off duty, another in which he choked a fellow officer while on the clock. In May of this year, he was indicted, along with two other officers, on charges of federal civil rights violations towards black teen suspects.
Discussing her 2006 actions, Horne told ABC 7, “I don’t regret it.” Watch her interview below:
