Racial Fallout After Buffalo Police Beating

Now that you've returned from Jena -- don't discard your marching shoes yet. Buffalo may need you.

If white police officers don’t respect the community most black officers come from, how then can they respect black officers? That is the question that essentially defines the case of Cariol ‘‘Carol’’ Horne.

Imagine what would happen if a Black officer was caught beating and choking a white male and a white female officer attempts to intervene by pulling the male cop’s arm away from around the beating victim’s neck.

Now imagine the black male officer delivering a hard punch to the white female officer’s face. Picture the response from other officers toward the black officer; picture the outrage from internal affairs (IA) and the resulting actions from them and his precinct.

White news outlets and stations would go crazy with stories and broadcasts.

As it happens this is a true story except for one small detail, the offending officer is a white male and the female officer is African American.

I’ve written before about this incident for The Black Star News. It started when Buffalo Police Officer Greg Kwiatowski, who is white, beat and choked a black man, Neal Mack, while answering a domestic call on November 1, 2006.

Officer Horne was on duty and went upstairs to Mack’s apartment after answering the call. She found Mack already handcuffed and the brave officer, Kwiatowski, using him as a punching bag.

Buffalo police officials and their IA unit turned the matter into a race issue by refusing to charge and indict Kwiatowski, long known to be a walking time bomb among many in the black and police community.

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