A Chicago police officer, Jason Van Dyke, has been charged with first degree murder for shooting and killing a black teenager. The killing occurred more than a year ago. If the accounts appearing in the news are correct, the reason the indictment took so long is that other officers covered up the facts of the case.



If that is true—we will know more after the trial is complete—then other officers, probably quite a lot of other officers, were accessories after the fact to murder. Under Illinois law, an accessory after the fact to a felony is liable to the same punishment as the felon.



It will be interesting to see if any of them are ever charged