Chicago Cops Indicted in Major Federal Drug Sting

(Chicago, Illinois) It's not fair to say that the Chicago area is the leader in the field of official corruption, but it's probably not wrong.

Fifteen Chicago-area law enforcement officers accused of providing armed security for large-scale drug deals "sold out their badge" during the course of a broad anti-drug sting, a federal law enforcement official said Tuesday.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald's comments at the Dirksen Federal building came during a news conference detailing charges against four Harvey police officers, 10 Cook County Sheriff's Department officers and one Chicago police officer who are among 17 people charged with helping to broker and guard purported drug deals that were set up by federal agents. [...]

"Ideally, it should be hard to find one corrupt police officer and it should never be easy to find 15 who allegedly used their guns and badges to protect people they believed were dealing drugs instead of arresting them," Fitzgerald said in a prepared statement issued Tuesday afternoon.

Robert D. Grant, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Office of the FBI, echoed those sentiments.

"The almost systemic corruption that this investigation uncovered is quite troubling, especially given that most of those charged are sworn law enforcement officers, " Grant said. "One would have hoped that the many public corruption investigations that have previously been announced would have served to deter this type of conduct. Apparently, that is not the case."

Unfortunately, many prominent national officials come out of the Chicago/Cook County area and it's difficult to know if they're the honest ones.

Heh.

Companion post at The Jawa Report.