* Salon…

In a meeting on July 24, 2012, Chicago Police Officer Allyson Bogdalek broke down and cried as she admitted to prosecutors the obvious: She had lied under oath in the case of a man accused of robbing a Back of the Yards liquor store and shooting the owner in the leg.

The victim of the shooting had picked the suspect, Ranceallen Hankerson, out of a lineup. But Officer Bogdalek lied on the stand during an April 13, 2011, hearing when she denied that the victim had been shown photographs of possible suspects prior to Hankerson’s arrest. In fact, the victim had been shown photos, and he had failed to pick Hankerson out—evidence that would have proven beneficial to the defense.

Prosecutors opened an investigation, and recommend indicting Bogdalek for perjury and other felonies, according to Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office files provided to Salon. In February 2014, however, the process came to a screeching halt: State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez overruled her subordinates and instructed them that no charges would be filed. The case, which until now has escaped much public notice, provides evidence to back charges that Alvarez, currently under fire for her handling of the fatal police shooting of Laquan McDonald, protects officers accused of misconduct. […]

In a statement released to Salon, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office blamed judges and juries, saying that they decided not to prosecute Bogdalek because it is simply too hard to win convictions against police officers.

The officer admitted committing perjury and yet they doubted they could get a conviction?

* Tribune…

Fraternal Order of Police President Dean Angelo told aldermen it was “very disturbing” to rank-and-file officers that the mayor said during a high-profile speech to the City Council this month that the city needs to deal with the “code of silence” in which Chicago police protect each other when they engage in misconduct.

“We have kids, we have bills, we have families,” Angelo said. “And to think, in 2015, with all the cameras that are around and all the videotaping that’s going on, that a police officer’s going to risk his livelihood for his family is ridiculous. And to think we have a population of people that say ‘Oh, it’s not a big thing. We do it every day.’ We don’t do that. This is not 1950.”

But when Ald. Proco “Joe” Moreno, 1st, asked Angelo to state for the record that a code of silence doesn’t exist in the Police Department, Angelo hedged. “There is not an answer I could give you that would be a blanket statement that someone out there is not doing something they should not be doing,” Angelo said. “I can’t say that.”

* Meanwhile, the Second City Cop blog has an interesting post about some of Mayor Emanuel’s recent promotions. The blog also points to this story…

Could Rahm Emanuel be headed to the witness stand?

Attorneys representing two police officers who said they faced retaliation for trying to reveal corruption, say they will call the mayor to testify about a so-called “code of silence” in the Chicago Police Department.

The mayor’s office said it will oppose any such effort, but lawyers for the two officers say he is key to their case, because he has publicly acknowledged that officers sometimes cover for each other.

“We now have an admission from the highest, within the City of Chicago, that the code of silence exists,” says attorney Christopher Smith. […]

“I am looking for a new leader for the Chicago Police Department, to address the problem at the very heart of the policing profession,” Emanuel told the City Council last Wednesday. “The problem is sometimes referred to as the thin blue line. The problem is other times referred to as the code of silence, and its tendency to ignore it. It is a tendency to deny it. It is a tendency in some cases to cover up the bad actions of colleagues.”

Oops.