“The Chicago police investigation of the 2014 shooting death of Laquan McDonald unfolded like hundreds of others had before it, with an officer who claimed he fired in fear of his life, fellow cops who backed up his story and supervisors who quickly signed off on the case as a justifiable homicide.
“The routine way the Police Department went about clearing Officer Jason Van Dyke — who now stands charged with murder in McDonald’s death — is at the heart of what critics of the department have often referred to as the code of silence.”