Judge Rules In Favor of Black Officer Who Fought for 15 Years to Receive Pension After Being Fired for Stopping White Colleague from Choking Black Man An ex-Buffalo police officer who was terminated nearly 15 years ago after intervening while her colleague carried out a chokehold on a handcuffed Black man will receive a full pension, a New York judge ruled on Wednesday, April 14. Cariol Horne was fired, faced departmental charges and was left without a pension after she forcibly removed her white colleague from a handcuffed Black man he’d placed in a chokehold in 2006. “To her credit, Officer Horne did not merely stand by, but instead sought to intervene, despite the penalty she ultimately paid for doing so. … She saved a life that day, and history will now record her for the hero she is,” New York Supreme Court Judge Dennis Ward wrote in the ruling.