BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB)-Buffalo Common Council President Darius G. Pridgen is backing several resolutions to improve police and community relations in the city of Buffalo, including calling on the state attorney general to investigate a case of police brutality in 2006.
An officer was choking Neal Mack during an arrest and, then police officer Cariol Horne tried to stop the altercation. She afterwards, was fired and lost her pension.
Pridgen says his resolution is asking the state attorney general’s office to take a second look at the incident and the circumstances surrounding the loss of her pension.
“We now have a totally different attorney general, we have a total different climate and atmosphere and lens right now, across this world, as it deals with policing in the United States,” said Pridgen. “So I think it’s an opportune time to look back at this case and to see were there civil rights violations can she be made whole.”
We caught up with Cariol Horne at a protest over the weekend.
“So if you cross that thin blue line, then you get ostracized and treated really badly, I didn’t want that to happen to anyone else,” said Cariol Horne former buffalo police officer. “So, I lost my pension, Neal Mack didn’t lose his life, so Neal mack still lives to this day because I did intervene.”
Mayor Byron Brown commented on the issue
“Officer Horne did not have to be terminated, officer Horne made a conscious decision to go before an arbitrator in an open public process as opposed to taking the judgement of the first African American police commissioner,” Brown said. “The arbitrator that officer Horne went before recommend that she be terminated and she was terminated based on that arbitrators recommendation. I didn’t terminate her, she went through a process that she called for and was terminated.”
The state attorney general’s office did not respond to attempts for comment.
Angelica Morrison is an award-winning reporter who has been part of the News 4 team since 2019. See more of her work here.
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