Cariol Horne-Holloman and her backers already want amendments made to “Cariol’s Law: The Duty to Intervene” – and it hasn’t even been signed into law yet.
The new legislation, which the Buffalo Common Council approved last week, requires police officers to intercede when a colleague is using excessive force, holds officers who fail to do so accountable and protects those who intervene from retaliation. It also provides retroactive protections for officers who reported or intervened.
The amendments the group wants include a city registry of the names of any officers terminated under Cariol’s Law to ensure they cannot be hired at another municipality in the state. The group also wants any officers convicted of a misdemeanor related to Cariol’s Law to undergo steps “to make sure that the person returning is no longer a danger to the community” before he or she can hold another civil service job.
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“We will continue to work with the Common Council with this law, as we have now met the two-week aging process that will allow us to add amendments to this law. This process allows for further transparency of the Police Department and its community members who in fact want safe communities and improved systems where we are all guaranteed life, liberty, justice and the pursuit of happiness,” the Justice for Cariol team said in written release.
Mayor Byron W. Brown has not signed the legislation into law yet, and the Council has not been informed of the proposed amendments.
“Laws can always be amended, and a new law is under a microscope to see how it can be better,” said Council President Darius G. Pridgen, who introduced the legislation last month.
“The law was public for two weeks, and we were not approached with any major suggested changes.”
A section of Cariol’s Law says that police officers convicted of specific misdemeanors – such as official misconduct – may not hold civil service posts for a period of five years from the date of conviction.
“If this is the case, there should be action steps taken by that individual or department to make sure that the person returning is no longer a danger to the community," Horne-Holloman said by email. She added that the steps should be outlined in the collective bargaining agreement and should include counseling, anger management, bystander intervention and generational trauma training.
For 14 years, Cariol Holloman-Horne has held firm that she did the right thing when she tried to stop a fellow Buffalo cop who she says was choking a man he was trying to arrest. Her day may finally have come.
Horne and her advocates also want the city to create a registry of officers terminated under Cariol’s Law, so that other departments in the state would be able to check it before hiring someone "to make sure he/she did not violate Cariol’s Law.”
“Since this law is to protect good law enforcement professionals, this is something that should be supported by the police departments and police unions,” Horne-Holloman said
Police union President John T. Evans said the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services already keeps such a database.
“I would think they’d be aware of that,” Evans said .
After the Council passed the duty to intervene law last week in a near-unanimous vote, Evans said he was “sickened” and “completely disgusted.” He called it a “slap in the face to police officers that have earned the title.”
The Buffalo Police Department already has a duty to intervene policy. But in the wake of Buffalo protests this year over the death of George Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis police and over alleged police brutality and institutional racism in Buffalo, community members asked that the policy be made into law.
Cariol Holloman-Horne's legal team made the first step today toward a new lawsuit over her firing 12 years ago from the Buffalo Police Department.
Horne-Holloman, who also lost her full pension when she lost her job, emerged as a vocal advocate for changing police policies. She was fired in 2008 following an arbitration hearing, after being accused of attacking a fellow officer as he was trying to arrest a man during a domestic dispute in 2006. Horne-Holloman said then and has maintained over the years that she was trying to stop the officer from choking the man.
Greg Kwiatkowski, the officer she fought, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge in an unrelated federal police brutality case and was sentenced to four months in prison.
In a bid to get Horne-Holloman's full pension restored, her lawyers filed a motion in State Supreme Court last week to vacate a judge's 2010 ruling that affirmed the findings of the arbitration hearing officer and her termination.
