OP-ED | Chicago Police Department Perpetuates Its Violence by Punishing Whistleblowers – By Joseph R. Dole (Truthout) / Jan 3, 2024
Police violence is not about “good apples” and “bad apples” — it is structural.
Every time a new wrongful conviction comes to light in Chicago, the Chicago Police Department (CPD) brass employ the same rote excuse: It is just a “few bad apples” causing these injustices. They claim that the vast majority of CPD members are good, honest people who diligently enforce the law. The backlash faced by the few CPD officers who have actually attempted to oppose these “bad apples,” however, clearly demonstrates the falsity of this narrative.
In Chicago, the “blue code of silence” is both real and pervasive. The fact that nearly every officer on the force will look the other way when they see their fellow officers violate citizens’ rights and commit other misconduct ensures that abuse and wrongful convictions will occur regularly. It also ensures that taxpayers will continue to be on the hook for the millions of dollars per year that the city of Chicago pays out in settlements and jury awards in civil suits — not just to victims of police misconduct, but also to those officers who suffer backlash for their attempts to report it.
Many of the biggest scandals to come out of the CPD over the past four decades have only been exposed because of internal whistleblowers. Frank Laverty was one such officer who tried to stand up to the “bad apples” around him. Laverty was a CPD detective who investigated the rape and murder of a young girl in the 1980s. His investigation concluded that the murderer was Lester Pique, which he reported to his supervisors.
