NEW YORK _ Pressure is mounting to reinvestigate the case of a Buffalo police officer who was fired from the force for trying to stop a colleague's chokehold on a handcuffed suspect.
Black officer Cariol Horne was terminated in 2008 after the Buffalo Police Department determined she used "unwarranted" physical force to stop the chokehold that white officer Gregory Kwiatkowski used during the 2006 arrest.
Buffalo City Council President Darius Pridgen told the New York Daily News on Monday he plans to request a meeting with state Attorney General Letitia James' office after sending a letter from the council last week calling for a review.
"I think it's important to look at the Cariol Horne case with a new set of eyes during this time of a new climate when it comes to police use of force," Pridgen said in a phone interview.
"I'm not sure how you plan for the future without looking back at the past, and that's why I've called for another set of eye on this case," he said.
Horne has long maintained she only physically intervened in the arrest because Kwiatkowski wouldn't listen to her verbal protests and seemed out of control with anger over "whatever happened" before she arrived on the scene of the domestic call.
"When he didn't stop choking him, then I just grabbed his arm from around (the suspect's) neck," she told WKBW-TV in 2014 as part of her ongoing bid to get her pension reinstated.
She said Kwiatkowski responded by punching her in the face.
A Change.org petition demanding that Horne's pension be restored topped 170,000 signatures Monday.
Attempts to reach Horne were not immediately successful.
"Our office is not commenting on this matter at this time," Sofia Quintanara, a spokeswoman in James' office, said in an email Monday.
Horne's case garnered renewed attention in the aftermath of George Floyd's police homicide in Minneapolis.
Floyd, 46, died in police custody May 25 after now-fired Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds as two other officers helped restrain him and a fourth stood guard.
The father of five repeatedly cried, "I can't breathe," before losing consciousness.
The four officers were fired and now are facing criminal charges.
