An article in the New York Times shines a ray of hope for belated justice for victims of police brutality like Eric Garner and George Floyd.
According to the article,
It was a cold November day in Buffalo[, New York] when Officer Cariol Horne responded to a call for a colleague in need of help. What she encountered was a white officer who appeared to be “in a rage” punching a handcuffed Black man in the face repeatedly as other officers stood by.
Officer Horne intervened, separating the white officer and eventually trading blows with him. For her part in essentially doing her job of protecting the public, in this case from another police officer, Officer Horne was eventually fired from the Buffalo PD a year shy of her 20-year retirement eligibility date because “her use of physical force against a fellow officer had not been justified.” I have to wonder what the BPD would have considered justified.
Officer Kwiatkowski’s description reads, in part, this telling way:
Ms. Horne said she saw Officer Kwiatkowski put the man in a chokehold. Officer Kwiatkowski said he had grabbed him around the neck and shoulders in “a bear hug headlock from behind,” according to court documents.
I can just see Officer Kwiatkowski writing his report, figuratively pausing with his pen under his lower lip, trying to describe a chokehold without using the incriminating word “chokehold.” Bear hugs normally involve the chest, while headlocks involve, obviously, the head. How Officer Kwiatkowski reconciled splitting a single action around the throat into two physically disparate actions I can only surmise as performing a psychological self-exoneration for him. And remember, this was years before Eric Garner was killed under similar circumstances.
This final resolution of Officer Horne’s case fifteen years after the fact, vacating an earlier ruling and restoring her back pay and benefits, seems to have been influenced by the George Floyd killing.
As a footnote to the situation, the article goes on to state:
Officer Kwiatkowski’s own police career ended under a cloud. He retired in 2011 while facing an internal affairs investigation and he was indicted the next year on federal civil rights charges stemming from the arrest of four Black teenagers. He ultimately pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four months in prison.