Part 4

After Chicago police officers Shannon Spalding and Danny Echeverria filed a whistleblower lawsuit, retaliation against them only intensified.

In autumn of 2012, the code of silence was very much in the news in Chicago. The trial of the civil suit brought against the city by Karolina Obrycka, the bartender struck and kicked by off-duty Officer Anthony Abbate in 2007, was unfolding before a jury in the federal courtroom of Judge Amy St. Eve.

One of Obrycka's central claims was that Abbate assaulted her, secure in the knowledge he would be protected by the code of silence within the Chicago Police Department. In support of this claim, her lawyers presented expert testimony to demonstrate the department's failure to adequately investigate and discipline police misconduct.