Who is to police the police? Cops are taught the us and them mentality from the start. Warehouse workers in America have a more dangerous job but they lack the PR ,machine cops have. The Code of Silence has been talked about since the days of Serpico and will as long as we have Police officers. Break the code and you are a Rat. We all know what happens to Rats.
This problem certainly exists, but it is by no means restricted to police officers. every group tries to minimize or cover up wrongdoing by its members. The AMA sweeps malpractice claims under the rug, the Bar Association is quick to dismiss charges against lawyers, etc.
It is human behavior, not police behavior, to keep the image of one's group as clean as possible.
The president of the police union in Chicago, Kevin Graham, said, " . . . How the special prosecutor can construe a ‘code of silence’ theory defies belief”.
What defies belief is that Kevin Graham was not struck by lightening as these words left his mouth.
2
Numbers can speak more definitively than opinions. The Chicago taxpayer has spent in the neighborhood of $750 MILLION since 2004 in police misconduct settlements. There are 12,000 police officers on the force. That is on average $62,500 per officer. This is more than a few bad apples behaving badly.
1
That’s why we need cameras. And full disclosure.
Despicable.
These are the same kind of police officers that also convict innocent people (letting the guilty stay out among us) just to say they solved the crime.
Bullies and cowards, what ever happened to "Protect and Serve"? They sully the names of all the other good officers around the country. This "blue wall of silence" is why the "Black Lives Matter" movement began and continues to this day.
Please, take a knee.
2
@MomT
I agree, this can be seen in the Netflix documentary 13th. It explores the horrific actions police have been doing for decades. I encourage everyone to watch it, we should all be aware of what is going on. The link to the trailer is attached below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V66F3WU2CKk
Right now, everything is topsy-turvy.
The more power one has, the higher the standard you should be held to. For example, cops have substantial power in our society and legal rights the rest of us don't, and thus should be held to higher standards of behavior than ordinary citizens. Top business management should be held to a higher standard than their employees. Politicians, judges, and others who set standards should be squeaky-clean and lose their jobs the moment they aren't.
But instead, we've decided that the more power one has, the less you will be held accountable for your actions. And that means that heinous acts go unpunished, from shooting innocent people (mostly poor and mostly black) to robbing people of their homes to crashing global capitalism for profit to war crimes.
Trying to break the blue wall of silence is just one small part of trying to fix what ails us, but it's a good start.
24
No doubt body cams aren't problem-free. Determining who has access to the footage and when; preventing officers from turning them off; storage and retrieval; and the limits of their perspectives/quality, are all important issues that need to be addressed.
But cases like this already show their value. Without the cam footage, the truth would have disappeared under the "code."
34
We, the citizenry, had better find a way to insure that our police forces truly believe that they do in fact answer to us. So many times I have heard police telling citizens that they don't answer to us. Perhaps we should insist on full-time video/audio monitoring of police while on routine patrol duty viewable by the public in real-time. Any failure in the feedback stream should result in immediate de-authorization of police authority for the affected unit. Big Brother needs a big dose of Big Brother.
20
Too many people will take this story to be anti-police. Too many will regard it as negative publicity which law-enforcement officers, doing difficult and dangerous jobs, don't need. A lot of cops themselves will recognize truth in this story, but not want to admit it publicly.
But this story is really against bad policing, against cops acting unprofessionally. This culture needs to change. Law enforcement officers, who understand the realities of their work, can be leaders here by establishing firm, workable, professional standards, and enforcement mechanisms for them.
32
@SC I strongly agree. We need to take stories like this as what they are - symptoms of a system that needs to be fixed. No honest person can deny there are good law enforcement officers, and no honest person can deny that the actions of bad law enforcement officers make us all less safe - from officers to defendants to bystanders.
Only by looking at the worst that is happening, and trying to fix it, will these problems be fixed. Hopefully, honest people still want to try, because the system sure isn't going to fix itself.
1
@SC - It's not so much about these police officers acting unprofessionally, but them acting as *criminals*.
4
This is really a game theory problem. The good cop who turns in the bad cop has nothing to gain but enemies. Rather, we need to give good cops more reason to dump bad cops. For example, most large cities pay millions per year in settlements because of the behavior of bad cops. Maybe we should take that money out of the police retirement fund, and triple it if there was a coverup. Good cops need a reason to want to get bad cops out of the force before they do something really bad.
21
@JS
No game, just right from wrong.
Here is a reason: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. We are a Christian country, right?
@Sil Tuppins In talk yes, in reality not so much
2
@Sil Tuppins
No, we are not a Christian country. There are lots of Christians in the country, but also lots of Hindus, Muslims, Jews, atheists, Sikhs and people who follow other religions. The Constitution enshrines the separation of church(es) and state.
2
So you have a killing, the police officer is found guilty due to evidence that included a video of the killing. Not knowing of the video, or not smart enough other police officers concocted a story to exonerate the killer. Their account was not in sync with the evidence.
In our fair city our citizens voted to set up a board to review the conduct of policing and the city's employees who police the city. Conservative opposition objected and said we should all 'Back the Blue' and allow the police department 'police' themselves.
Now, our State legislators want to nullify the oversight board because it may be poorly written.
We are in Trump country.
18
Corrupt police departments have long existed but they serve no one but corrupt cops. Communities learn distrust which hinders investigations and outreach. Good cops are afraid to speak up as their safety is put at risk. Jurors fear for future harassment. Promotions are given as rewards not competence. Over time, police work operates more like a mafia family with their union operating more as mob boss than protective organization.
Police officers should face the consequences of lying to cover up a crime, more so because as those sworn to uphold the law have instead broken it. Retiring with a pension should not be an option.
Police oversight by is essential, for both sides.
19
Chicago is far from alone, this is one of American society’s largest dilemmas. Equipping everything from cars to uniforms to guns with ubiquitous arrays of advanced cameras that transmit everything to remote recorders 7 x 24 might be the only long-term solution. Good cops shouldn’t complain, this would only further protect them from false charges while helping to convict the guilty. It would also help to protect the mostly good cops from the few poisoned apples. Cameras and transmitters are advancing and shrinking rapidly. The cost to do something like this in a big way is far lower than it was even two years ago. Videos have helped in many cases and were nebulous in others. We now need to move onto the next step and deploy higher definition camera arrays that remain crystal clear from almost any distance in almost any light. Ask any broadcast video or defense technology professional and they’ll tell you just how advanced video sensors have recently become. The feds should fund an advanced video technology program to work out both the rules and the tech. Chicago is just the place to do it. Technology can sometimes be a great equalizer, its high time we used it to its full potential.
10
Police Officers are always in an ambiguous position. Even with civilian crime, an police officer is both the "neutral arbiter" and the "prosecutor." While their theoretical role is to protect the public, they are rewarded for getting convictions.
The result is the advice of lawyers to clients: "Do not ever talk to the police, especially if you are innocent!"
Whether a formal code of silence exists or not is beside the point here. Anyone who has played sports knows the same rule - you always back up your teammate, even when he is wrong. It is part of human and mammalian psychology, dating back to pre-historic times. Nobody needs to write it down or spell out the consequences.
The difference with police is that in their case, despite their bias, their evidence will invariably be given more credibility, just because they are law-enforcement officers. This is where the flaw in the system lies.
4
Many years ago an acquaintance told me about her friend who was a rookie on a police force out on patrol with a more senior police officer chasing a burglar on a factory roof. When the suspect was apprehended, the senior police officer threw him off the building to his death and, of course, the rookie was expected to maintain his silence. Clearly, the rookie felt the need to confide in someone, even if it was only to my acquaintance.
I wasn't at Van Dyke's trial nor read the transcript, so I don't know what made it into actual testimony. But I would think that the lies committed by these three officers, so easily disproved, might have ironically actually helped to convict Van Dyke of murder. Why the need to lie if Van Dyke's shooting was justified?
1
Every cop there when Laquan McDonald was murdered was an accessory. Every person in the chain of command, including Rahm Emanuel, helped hide the crime.
They should all be indicted.
Cops everywhere are the most dangerous gang in the country.
1
I knew somebody who quit the police after his first year because he told me that if he remained he'd become callous and corrupt; and he didn't want to become such a person.
3
"The city reached a $2 million settlement in 2016 with two officers — Shannon Spalding and Daniel Echeverria — who said they experienced retaliation after exposing a fellow officer who was accused of shaking down drug dealers and of framing people who would not go along with other crimes."
They are suing the wrong people. They should include the police union. If the cops are hit in their own pocketbooks rather than in the city coffers they may have some incentive to change.
4
This started when the officers heard about someone breaking into trucks. They suspected the young man that was in the same area at the same time, who was also holding a knife, and ignoring the officer’s commands. The officer’s suspicion and irresponsible actions played a role in this, but so did police training. This can be seen in the warrior mindset – a training tactic that teaches police to be aggressive in dangerous situations. I believe the warrior mindset is essential to police training because, they do encounter dangerous situations in which acting quickly is necessary. The problem with this, is that not every situation they encounter is like that. And for those situations, they are not always properly prepared. But, the officers are still responsible for their actions. The warrior mindset is explained in the video link below. The video is 15 minutes but, the relevant parts are 3:26 – 5:30, 7:34 – 8:19, and 11:58 – 13:48. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt5F6QuY8lo The code of silence is a problem but, police misconduct stems further than that.
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@Abby I agree that the "warrior mindset" may have contributed to this atrocity. I feel that implicit racial bias and racial prejudice played a large role. The irrational fear of black men led to this officer to feel threatened even though the "threat" was running away. I do not think we will see an end to these senseless killings until we address the implicit bias many police officers are unknowingly walking around with.
"And Eddie Johnson, the superintendent of the Chicago Police and a 30-year veteran of the force, said this year — in a sworn deposition related to a separate police shooting lawsuit — that he was unaware of any such code. " This is the reason Mr. Johnson was made the superintendent of the Chicago Police because he is either woefully ignorant or will maintain the status quo in order to be accepted by the rank and file.
5
Anyone recall "The Good Wife"?
There were multiple stories about the behavior of the Chicago PD. All told the story of widespread criminal behavior by cops in Chicago.
Certainly police misconduct happens everywhere. But in some places, it is punished. Not always, but often enough that police officers can never be sure that they can get away with bad behavior. And, more to the point, everyone is subject to punishment, from the cop on the beat to chiefs, at least in New York City.
1
Policing is a very tough job (they're out there 24/7), but somehow in the US it seems many police officers owe a higher loyalty to themselves than to the public they are supposed to serve. We see this on a daily basis. Placard abuse in NYC. Overtime abuse here in MA. If police can't do the right thing when it comes to something as simple as parking, how can you expect them to do the right thing when it comes to covering up for a colleague whose inappropriately killed someone?
Prosecutors have shown an inability to hold police accountable (to be sure the public who serve on grand juries are part of the problem too), but prosecutors should be the last stop. Police officers themselves should be holding each other accountable like any profession does. Instead, they look the other way or actively enable bad behavior and often the few that try to do the right thing are targeted by their own colleagues. Take the example of the Florida State Trooper who pulled over the off-duty Miami PD for driving 120mph and was then stalked by MPD officers and investigated by her own department.
Police officers deserve better from each other, especially those who are trying to do the right thing. Holding each other to a higher standard is what a true profession does.
1
There is an unfortunate misconception about the police, that there are good apples and bad apples. In every, and I mean every, case like this where an officer has committed a felony, the surrounding officers will always lie and fabricate a story to benefit the "bad" officer. Without fail. They have created an environment that if they did not they would make that officers life so miserable they would have to quit.
It is so prevalent that it is hard to buy the couple of bad officers ruin it for everyone nonsense. The culture in whole is bad.
4
@leftcoast In Canada, with incidents involving officer weapons discharge, there is always an investigation by the Serious Incidents Unit (SIU). These are fellow police assigned to that duty, and as in the "code of silence" issue mentioned, officers are treated like "traitors to their family" and undeserving of any respect, and I doubt very much that attitude will change while any of us are still alive. It's one of those "who I am" issues, sadly.
2
A clear message needs to be sent. If these officers are convicted, maximum sentences must be imposed with any prison terms to run consecutively, not concurrently.
4
As a former life-long Chicagoan, it is well known that a large segment of the cops are not to be trusted.
And it is not only in the horrific situations like the Laquan McDonald case in minority communities.
I once lived in the Chicago exurbs but was visiting my doctor in the north Michigan Avenue area, whereby his hospital had its own parking garage where I naturally parked. As I was driving home I noticed a Chicago cop car on Michigan Avenue looking at me and later forgot about it.
It turns out they punched in my plate and saw that I lived a distance away so they wrote a fake ticket saying I was illegally parked on Michigan Avenue.
Most people don't fight these false tickets due to distance and expense. However, I did, enclosing a letter from my doctor as well as my parking receipt. No dice. This scam from the Chicago cops is called a "flying ticket."
Finally, I enlisted the aid of the consumer reporter for the NBC-Chicago television affiliate who pressed my documentation and got the ticket voided with the city.
Bottom line: Chicagoans are extra nice, just watch yourself around the cops.
16
And people wonder why law enforcement officers are despised by large portions of the population....
5
These officers participated in the cover-up of a murder. They should have been charged with felony murder. It's high time we start to treat criminals in uniform like the criminals they are.
15
Here in Boston, the cops refer to it as 'testilying.'
10
Compare the police to fireman and it’s sad.
Everyone respects fireman and thinks of them as putting their lives on the line for citizens. Could anyone imagine a fireman lying to protect another fireman who was an arsonist??? Never.
Police departments need a complete overhaul around the country. They are rotten to the core.
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@Manish I agree 100%. The two 'public service' departments could not be any more different. I can't imagine there are many firemen who ever considered being a cop, much less any cops who considered being a fireman.
One group is self-effacing, selfless, warm-hearted, trained in how to SAVE lives. The other is typically in the job simply because they had few other options and the barriers to entry in the police dept. are clearly low ...and/or the person wanted to be a cop because they are on a power trip.
12
Journalist ride-alongs for every police officer! Volunteers -- and willing police departments -- needed.
3
Is the ride along so the journalists can witness how cops construct a false narrative of events when they make a mistake? Not following your logic.
1
@Lori Robinson - when the danger arises and it gets "hot", they boot you out of the car. You need a different tool than ride-alongs.
It's so well known they made a movie about it called...wait for it..."Code of Silence". 33 years ago.
3
The DA tried to prevent the tape from being released. He should stand trial for obstruction of justice, as should the mayor if he saw the tape during the initial investigation.
24
There's the answer in the second to last paragraph:
Go after the top brass as accomplices to their subordinate officer's illegal activity as aggressively as possible. It won't take too many chiefs and captains in jail to make other brass take a very keen eye to their people's activities.
25
Power, when unregulated, will lead to abuse more often than not. Case in point. And the 'brotherhood' shall remain complicit, I mean, 'silent', a tribal loyalty that, in the face of injustice, ought to be condemned.
10
Virtually any male exclusive or dominated environment will misbehave - police, priesthood, corporate boardroom - of that you can be certain. Its a visceral male thing - to look out for one another despite the immorality that might be inherent in doing so. Overturning these testosterone polluted environments has only one remedy.
9
As a former prosecutor in nyc for 30 years, I can assure you, this story is nothing compared to the truth. And I mean, NOTHING!
28
Mayor Emanuel operates under a strict code of silence when it comes to the mass shootings on the city's south side.
5
All throughout my neighborhood are signs on lawns that show support to police, and I wish that I was brave enough to bring along a Sharpie to add "straight and uncorrupt" before police. We have seen countless times that there are many bad police officers throughout the country; that's not so surprising, as every profession has a large share of bad employees. What is troubling is that there is a near immediate need to protect those bad policemen at all costs.
It's almost as if they have this fear that just one bad policeman tarnishes every one of them, and it's just not so. One bad policeman is the same as one bad politician or one bad teacher or one bad doctor. They need to fired/punished/penalized and not let them be grouped in with all the good policemen, politicians, teachers, and doctors.
Knee-jerk protection and then planned cover-ups is what make people afraid of the police more than the bad actions of a few.
23
It's always nice to know that someone's got your back, but when and if you have to lie to have their back then it's no longer nice it's down right ugly.
It would be great if this only applied to police departments across the nation, but it applies to any organization or church through out the world.
12
Frank Serpico was shot in the head and left to die in an undercover drug bust after he told the Knapp Commission about corruption in the New York Police Department.
When was the last time a police officer informed on officers who beat innocent victims, planted evidence,stole evidence, shot in an extrajudicial execution and alleged criminal? Hint...NEVER
18
They need to be prosecuted. All you gotta do is look at the officer in the center of the photo, and the one on the right. These two in particular 'scream' bully cops...just the way they carry themselves...they look 'beefed up'...and the one in the center has a smug look.
There's a reason why so many Americans (even I, a middle-aged white female) am extremely distrustful of the police as a whole. And this distrust and animosity towards police will only continue, unless we begin seeing the bad cops held accountable.
13
Makes me wonder what their REAL oath of office says.
4
Many years ago Los Angeles and Chicago traded police officers for a period of time to observe the differences in their operations.
LA while not exactly the ideal department, was basically an honest one. After some weeks they Chicago officers had to be sent back as they were shaking down businesses. There have been cases of cops in California doing so, but it is rare, and they do not get away with it.It seemed to be normal for Chicago, a different culture, a holdover from the Al Capone days.
7
@David Underwood Umm, you must not remember the LAPD Rampart scandal then.
One memoir of the barrios back in the day basically said the cops were seen as no more legitimate than any of the other gangs running around, because of how crooked the cops were.
7
@Dave Yes, back in the day but then they pretty much cleaned up the department. More women and minorities came in, hard at first but now the norm. Acceptable behavior comes from the top.
1
@Dave
That was even before the Rampart scandal.
It's past time for this to stop. It will be a great step forward when police unions come out firmly for professionalism in policing. It will also help if standards of conduct require recording of police actions, an a lowered presumption that police are truthful when the recordings fail.
8
Here's what it says in the Rules & Regulations of the Chicago PD,
"While the use of reasonable physical force may be necessary in situations which cannot be otherwise controlled, force may not be resorted to unless other reasonable alternatives have been exhausted or would clearly be ineffective under the particular circumstances involved."
From this, a reasonable person will conclude that officer Van Dyke clearly violated department rules and guidelines.
Further, the department's Code of Ethics states, “I will never act officiously or permit personal feelings, prejudices, animosities, or friendships to influence my decisions."
From this, an honest juror must agree that today's three defendants let personal considerations influence their decisions to testify or witness falsely about Van Dyke's actual conduct.
"I will constantly strive to achieve these objectives and ideals, dedicating myself before God to my chosen profession . . . law enforcement.”
When men and women entrusted by the citizenry with lethal weapons to protect society view their roles as above God, country, and the Constitution, should not We, the People, hold them to account?
15
This garbage has to be stopped.
Murder of innocent black teenages, coverups of these incidents, coupled with police retreating to parking lots (Furgenson Effect?), leave one to wonder who if anyone is minding the store....
13
I have been involved with the justice system for 30 years. In Oakland CA, in Solano County, CA for 19 years, in Vermont for 11 years. I have worked for the courts and for the defense, putting people in jail and getting them out. The one constant, through all the training and special classes in both states, was the division between THEM and US. We were the good guys and everyone else was bad or potentially so. This dichotomy plays itself out all over the country. To Protect and Serve applies only to us and ours, everyone else is OTHER. As we are trained, so will we behave.
38
Agreed but everyone’s pensions are so good that nobody within the system will speak out and tell the truth. It’s a simple formula, 20 and out and I don’t care.
12
I'm not not anti-police, but even middle aged privileged white males like myself know about the code.
We've got something called the Law Enforcement Review Agency in Manitoba. Between 1985 (when it was set up) and 2016 there were 4300 complaints from citizens.
Two resulted in criminal charges.
Two.
In over twenty years.
46
I asked an acquaintance one time why she didn't trust police officers, and she told me one time she was struck by a car driven by an off-duty policeman who ran a 4-way stop sign. Within 4 or 5 minutes several other police had arrived, all telling her they would say she'd run the sign. She said, "They'll say anything to protect each other."
57
@Diane, similar experience here with a relatively minor traffic accident involving a cop. Within minutes 5 cruisers and 5 motorcycles arrived, and a really aggressive type who turned.out to be the partner of the cop involved started interviewing me. Fortunately a senior supervisor stepped and did a decent job of impartially recording my statement though he did not do several other things that he said he will do that would have benefited my side of the story. As I said on another discussion, I don't think of the police as a fraternity. They more closely approximate a frat house.
35
Had a similar experience as well in NYC. I was hit head on by a car making a turn against the light on a rainy night. Cops showed up, did not ask the other driver for papers and the police report of the accident vanished. When I complained to the NYC police commissioner (via a lawyer) I was told if I didn’t drop the matter I would regret it.
7
As an FBI street agent, I investigated police corruption cases for six years in Chicago working on the indictments and convictions of 15 law enforcement officers. Corruption was wide spread from top to bottom in the law enforcement community. The agents and federal prosecutors who worked these cases were generally despised by other law enforcement personnel even by some federal types.
The corruption infested every area where a corrupt cop could make a dollar. Examples were protecting drug and prostitution operations, murder for hire, shaking down legitimate businesses, acting as bag men for higher ups, selling dead bodies to the highest bidding funeral home, robbery, fraud and on and on.
At no time did one honest LEO come forward to report any type of criminal activity even though it was widespread.
Cops habitually lie and/or perjure themselves to protect themselves and fellow officers. These three appear to be just three more.
86
@Jesse James
This behavior is worse than most felonies as it corrupts our entire judicial system.
LOCK THEM UP!
10
@Jesse James
With all due respect, if the police corruption you investigated in Chicago is so "infested every area where a corrupt cop could make a dollar" and so "wide spread from top to bottom in the law enforcement community" how come the indictments and convictions totals were so low, i.e., involving only 15 law enforcement officers over a six year time period?
3
Mr Malcolm
Just reporting on what I experienced first hand.
5
I’ve already seen this movie, and sadly, this theme is likely to continue in these societally funded boys clubs.
15
Charge the shooter with murder; charge the three bozos with complicity in the murder and fire them with loss of their sacred pension and any other benefits due a police officer who does his job as intended.
50
@Sara M
Let's see, if a citizen drives a get away car and the offender in the liquor murders a clerk, they can be charged with capital murder even though they were only driving the car.
Same thing here. The three have the blood of the murder on their hands and deserve adjoining cells to the criminal police officer who shot Laquan 16 times.
6
The good news here is that these men are on trial and that the "code of conduct" is on trial as well. The bad news is that many of the other officers should be on trial and that they continue to support the code of silence. Then there is the conspiracy among officials in the Chicago police department and hired lawyers to cover up the conspiracy to protect this one killer, a policeman. We have far too many "killer policemen" in our country and this is one of the reasons. Just look up the statistics on the number of white men killed by our police compared to the number of black men killed by our police. Of course, the mantra goes that black men are more violent and evil and deserving to be killed. Uh huh.
31