THREAD: To tell the story of the Buffalo Police Department over the last two decades, I have to tell you the story of Cariol Horne, a former Buffalo PD Officer.

This thread is going to be long, it's going to be tough to read at times, and it will feature several "triggers".

This is Officer Cariol Horne. She was a member of the Buffalo Police Department. On November 1, 2006, she got a call that would change her life, forever. The call was for an officer who was in trouble.

That brings us to the other officer in this story, Officer Gregory Kwiatkowski.

This is the story of good cops and bad cops, and what happens when they collide.

When Horne arrived at the scene, which was a domestic disturbance call, a suspect, Mr. Neal Mack, was already detained. He had been handcuffed with his hands in front of him. And Officer Gregory Kwiatkowski was punching him in the face, repeatedly.

Horne, along with around ten other officers, were able to get Mack out of the home and get him outside. However, once outside Kwiatkowski again attacked Mack, this time choking the man. It's important to note that Mack was still handcuffed at the time.

Horne, seeing this unfold, reacted quickly to remove Kwiatkowski's arm from Mack's neck. Kwiatkowski proceed to then direct his anger at his fellow officer Horne, punching her in the face, a punch that would ultimately cause her to have to replace her bridge.

Horne was restrained by other officers when she attempted to defend herself from Kwiatkowski.

No charges were ever filed against Mack.

No charges were ever filed against Kwiatkowski.

Horne faced 13 charges of obstruction of justice for seperating Kwiatkowski from Mack, was found guilty on all counts, and was fired from the police department.

It should be noted that Kwiatkowski's own sworn testimony contradict the charges filed against Horne. The charges state that Horne jumped on Kwiatkowski's back--something Kwiatkowski himself says never happened.

Horne was on her 19th year on the force--on year away from retiring with pension. Because she was fired she was denied pension and despite repeated appeals, she has never been awarded it, as we are now almost a decade and a half seperated from the event.

Horne, who has five children, was forced to take a job as a truck driver in order to provide for them.

But that is not the end of the story.

In 2008, police officers again attacked Mack, leading to his hospitalization. You can read a first hand account of Mack's story here: http://www.politicalaffairs.net/did-buffalo-police-beat-and-torture-neal-mack-again/

Suffice to say, the description of the treatment of Mack by a number of Buffalo PD officers can only be described as torture. The multiple physical abuses Mack alleges include this line:
"They stuck my head between the car and the door so they could crush my head."

It should be noted that when this happened, the hearing to determine if Horne would receive her pension was ongoing, and Mack believed that he was attacked in an attempt to get to Horne or to silence him.

This is also not the end of our story.

So, you might be wondering what ever happened to Officer Gregory Kwiatkowski.

Well he retired. After he had been suspended. For choking another officer while on the job. There was another incident under investigation where he had punched yet another officer while off duty.

This is also not the end of our story.

The next part of our story begins in 2009 when four teenage boys were in a car planning to play some basketball. The boy who was driving the car is Donald Silmon, and he is the next person to enter into our story, and to have an interaction with Officer Kwiatkowski.

One of the four friends in Silmon's car fired a BB gun out of the car near a small gathering of people. Silmon panicked and fled the scene. He was stopped a short time later by three officers: Raymond Krug, Joseph Wendel and Greg Kwiatkowski.

(I should note here that they were stopped not by Buffalo PD, but by another department who called in BPD.)

Kwiatkowski grabbed Silmon around the neck, pushed him against the car and then slammed his head against the vehicle. He also asked Silmon (whose mother is white and father is mixed race) "Do you like shooting at white kids?"

After he was handcuffed and placed in the car, Officer Krug approached him with the BB gun. He asked Silmon if the BB gun was his. He said yes, and Krug promptly shot him with it in the leg. Wendel then suggested to Krug that he "shoot him in the balls."

Once they were at the police station the abuse continued, with Wendel punching Silmon multiple times.

Under the Obama administration, an FBI investigation was launched into this case. Kwiatkowski, then retired, pled guilty to civil rights violations and agreed to testify.

It's important to note that this was nearly a decade later. Kwiatkowski's testimony admitted his own wrongdoings at the scene, but placed the shooting in the hands the other officers. Krug and Wendel said Kwiatkowski committed the shooting. Krug and Wendel were found not guilty.

Raymond Krug is (as of February 14, 2020) a detective in the Buffalo PD.

The Buffalo PD does not have an active roster of their cops available online, so I am unable to confirm that Joseph Wendel is still with the Buffalo PD.

And that is the end of our story, but it is not the only story I could have told you about misconduct in the BPD.

For example, I could have told you about Officer Corey Krug, who pushed Devin Ford into a car and then began beating him with a baton once he was inside the vehicle.

I could have told you about Officer Joseph Hassett, who assaulted Timothy Stanton Jr. while he was in lockup. The charges against Hassett were dismissed by a judge despite being caught on camera.

Hassett was later placed on desk duty for "irremediable problems of credibility

I could have told you about Officers Todd C. McAlister and Nicholas J. Parisi, who assaulted a suspect during a drug bust, which ultimately led to the death of the suspect. No charges were ever filed.

I could have told you about Officer Robert Eloff who, at the request of a local bar owner, handcuffed a Air National Guardsman, William C. Sager Jr., after the bar owner had pushed Sager down a flight of stairs. Eloff resigned from the force because he restrained Sager's friend..

...with cause, and was ultimately sentenced to 12 months in prison. Sager died of his injuries from the event, known as the "Molly's Pub Incident".

These are just a sampling of the cases I could have told you about, and that's just the Buffalo PD.

And this is where our story ends for the night.