During the first week of this month there was good news and bad news. The good news is Cariol Horne's gag-order was lifted. The bad news: she was found guilty of nine of the 11 charges against her by hearing officer Thomas Rinaldo (who seemed pretty biased against Horne and her attorneys near the end) and was subsequently fired a few days later by Buffalo Police Chief H. McCarthy Gipson. His decision doesn't come as a shock either. Many people assume he is still upset over being called a "crackhead" last fall by Horne's defense attorney Anthony Pendergrass.
For Chris Stevenson's past reporting on this case see:
It still doesn't help that the witnesses that threatened to blow the lid off the top cop in Buffalo never materialized. Pendergrass lost his bid to get Horne's disciplinary hearing extended so he could introduce these key witnesses a few weeks back in the Supreme Court. Having never attended law school, I can't pretend to understand how these things work, but if it's me calling the commish a crack addict, my witnesses are just outside waiting for me to ring them in. This is not a trump card I can save for later because it makes for great theater, or as Buffalo News columnist Rod Watson said; a good "distraction." There was time to push for a drug test. At this point so much time has elapsed, if the accusation were true and he kicked the habit since then, a hair sample couldn't come up positive.
Both Rinaldo and Gipson's decisions came after Horne won at least three awards: one over a year ago from radio personality and columnst Ted Kirkland. During the summer she was awarded during a BLAC conference. More recently she was among others to win a Harriet Tubman award. Rinaldo and Gipson still have yet to put Officer Greg Kwiatkowski under any type of disciplinary measure for his alleged punching Horne in the face back on 11/1/06 after she intervened while Kwiatkowski was choking a Black suspect he and several of his cop-buddies had already apparently beaten.
While Horne was winning awards, Kwiatkowski was still putting his hands on civilians. I wrote a story on him last summer after he initiated a beating of a W. Seneca Italian man who said he was leaving an altercation at a South Buffalo resturaunt. Kwiatkowski thought the man was Puerto Rican and had his fellow officers keep his name out of the official police report. The man, Donny Answeeney, showed me and activist Willie Stewart pictures of his battered and bruised face, of which the Buffalo Criterion ran a story after much waiting to get a copy of Kwatkowski's P73 statement admitting his physical altercation with Answeeney.
In spite of last week's rulings this controversy is far from over. No way does Kwatkowski get rewarded for reckless behavior especially if it's part of a long pattern. Reportedly he is number five on a list to be promoted to lieutenant. It is up to District Attorney Frank Clark to charge, prosecute and initiate Kwiatkowski's perp-walk out of his precinct independent of any recent Buffalo Police decision against Horne.
Gipson could have made this easier and put an end to the whole affair way before the hearings by exonerating Horne and suspending Kwiatkowski. Firing him would not have upset local officers in particular, but it would have upset the BPD continuum and that's the prime reason he is still on the job. Between Horne's firing and Gipson's recent PR campaign as a champion of battered women, white Buffalo looks eager to accept whatever the Buffalo Police Department tells them. Therein lies the greatest tragedy.
Since Horne has been ousted, its clear now that the Black community has to be allowed to voice more anger towards its city officials at public forums given by some of Buffalo's Black leaders. People have to be allowed to reveal their experiences with police misconduct absent of any overemphasis on being respectful toward city officials just because they are Black.
Particularly galling is the complete absence and silence of the Black policemen. Why are you letting the sisters out-man you like that? If it weren't for someone Black taking a stand decades ago, you wouldn't even have that job.
With a Black mayor looking on, Buffalo's Black police chief fires a Black female officer for intervening in a situation where a white cop is choking a Black suspect whose charges were later dropped. This is shameful, disgraceful and unacceptable.
I've noticed in the past the Commissioner's and other Black city officials' efforts to gain the attention of Al Sharpton during a limited vist to Buffalo. Word is they want to get Minister Louis Farrakhan to have the BLAC to back off of the Horne situation. They don't want these figures to make this a national issue. The shame is purely within the decision making of some of Buffalo's key black lpolitical officials just a week before Malcolm X's birthday. "What the matter boss, we sick... we sick?" How true his words ring today.
--Chris Stevenson is a columnist for the Buffalo Challenger, email him at
pointblankdta@yahoo.com
