Lt. kwiatkowski in cariol horne case suspended for attacking another officer
Photo Credit: from left to rt, attorney Anthony Pendergrass, Officer Cariol Horne, her son, Civil Rights Attorney, Dr. Kenneth Nixon outside the hearing room at Buffalo Police headquarters. Photo Credit: Maria Rosa, January 2007.
The Buffalo News reported on Thursday the Buffalo Police Department suspended with pay Lt. Gregory Kwiatkowski from the Buffalo Police after grabbing another officer by the throat, causing other officers to intervene to stop him.
Similarly, the Buffalo Police Department suspended Officer Cariol Horne on May 2008 after a disciplinary hearing that involved Police Lt. Gregory Kwiatkowski for attempting to stop him from choking Neal David Mack, an African-American man during his arrest at home on flimsy charges a judge later threw out.
They accused Horne of jumping on Kwiatowski’s back while he attempted to arrest Mr. Mack, and she presented testimony that she too was trying to stop him from choking another person as in the incident that happened on Thursday.
Mean while Officer Cariol Horne, a single parent lost her job, and pension while Kwiatkowski continued in his job not only harassing and intimidating others but his own fellow cops for wanting to transfer out from his platoon. And one of the 11 out of 13 charges against Horne when ousted from the police force was for harassing Lt. Kwiatkowski!
And Kwiatkowski is still under investigation for a bar brawl at a Police Benevolent Association function in Lancaster. Artvoice reported that in 2009 Buffalo News columnist Rod Watson compared the detective Dennis Delano and Horne case. Yet, former Buffalo Police Commissioner H. McCarthy Gipson treated the Delano case differently than Horne, allowing him to retire while Horne two months short of 20 years on the police force ousted not allowed to collect her pension. And Chris Stevenson Buffalo Bullet blog covered the Horne case in detail in a few publications.
What makes this case so bizarre is Buffalo Police Commissioner Gipson had been allegedly accused of using crack cocaine, and the same Buffalo Police Officer who almost apprehended him on Woltz Avenue Ann Vanyo testified against Horne in her disciplinary hearing. And another African-American Deputy Police Commissioner Byron C. Lockwood fired her instead of former Police Commissioner Gipson for this reason.
Interestingly , readers of the Buffalo News story about the recent suspension of Kwiatkowski raised concerns about the Horne case. So, in light of this new development with Kwiatkowski , should the case of Officer Horne be reconsidered and reinstated to her former position or allowed to collect her pension?
Horne recalled the death of Mark Virginia at the hands of Buffalo Police in 1997 when another Lt. name Greg Blosat allegedly stomped and broke his neck causing death by asphyxiation, but eventually acquitted of all charges and in the video “she did not want that to happen under her watch.”
The video is from May 8, 2008.
