Chicago’s police department has been tainted by torture allegations since the 70s.

And yesterday, authorities caught up with Commander Jon Burge, one of many officers at the center of a torture ring that saw numerous suspects suffocated, electrocuted and beaten.

It has taken decades for those involved to be brought to justice and now that Burge is in custody, the limitation period (how long you have to charge someone with a crime after it is committed) has run out. So instead of facing the assault charges, he will be brought to court for acts of perjury and obstruction of justice.

The real question this story raises is, why did it take so long?

In a statement to the Chicago Tribune this morning, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said that the police department may have a “perceived code of silence.”

Otherwise known as the “thin blue line.”

It is this unwillingness to rat out a fellow cop that held up the torture investigation. It caused the prosecutors to miss their opportunity to charge Burge with the crime he actually committed. It also tainted the honor of every police officer who worked with Burge during that period and knew or ought to have known Burge was committing these acts.

Officers like Burge are not common in the police department.

Although police are under scrutiny often around the country for unnecessary force, evidentiary mistakes etc., torture isn’t high on the list of police trespasses. Burge and his cohorts were a set of damaged people who found each other and worked together to inflict unnecessary pain on those they arrested (many of whom have since been pardoned after evidence tampering was discovered).

But the act of refusing to report a fellow officer for violations of civil rights, no matter how small or how great, is very common.

Police witness their colleagues acting in harmful ways all the time, they lose their temper, they rough up a suspect a little more than necessary, and they refuse to report these actions to their superiors.

Now I know that each of us can understand not wanting to be a tattle tale. We were taught that at a young age. This instinct towards comraderie is heightened when people are put in dangerous situations together and depend on each other for support.

But if you give a person a gun, tell them they can use force, take away someone’s freedom and even their life if necessary, they don’t get to play by normal rules.

We should expect our police officers to be the most honorable, the most principled individuals. We should hold them to higher standards than we impose on ourselves.

We should, most certainly, demand that they break the thin blue line when our constitutional rights are at stake.