In 2010, Van Buren spoke of and was seen getting treatment for cervical cancer. Ron Carver in setting up a sting operation to arrest another former acquaintance, Terry Randolph, for murder. Though Briscoe assured Van Buren that she was not at fault for what happened, she still felt very much guilty as her involvement in the original case was what got her promoted. In the end, Russo went to jail for her misconduct. As a result, two innocent suspects were imprisoned and one of them died before they could be exonerated. In 2001, Van Buren discovered that a case she solved 12 years earlier had been tainted by a fabricated fingerprint match given to her by her friend in the forensics department, Lisa Russo.

( L&O: ' Ritual') Her lawsuit, which resulted in an increased workload upon her precinct in retaliation, was unsuccessful.

In 1997, she sued the NYPD after a white woman with less experience was promoted over her. She also helped to put away the other robber for the young man's death with the help of the mother of the kid she killed. Van Buren was ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing in the shooting as she didn't intentionally kill the young man, but it continued to haunt her. In 1994, during an attempted robbery on her while at an ATM, Van Buren shot one of her robbers in the arm, but the bullet passed through and killed the other robber, a mentally disabled kid who was unarmed.

During her lengthy tenure as squad leader of the Two-Seven, she commanded various detectives this included Lennie Briscoe, Mike Logan, Tony Profaci, Rey Curtis, Morris LaMotte, Sammy Kurtz, Ed Green, Reina Perez, Ana Cordova, Joe Fontana, Nick Falco, Nina Cassady, Cyrus Lupo, and Kevin Bernard.

The Captive Heart by Anita Gordon