From: "Richard Hong" 

Gregg,

Well, the service academies have always had an honor code which holds that
someone who fails to turn in a known violator is likewise guilty of no less
of an offense.  As West Point's code states: a cadet shall not lie, cheat,
steal, nor tolerate those who do.

But as is documented time and again, the ethical "standard" of
the police is that one is "clean" if one does not personally
commit a criminal act, but that it is wrong to turn in a fellow officer. 
By the very reasonable West Point standard, this makes every cop who knows
of a dirty officer just as guilty of being dirty by virtue of not turning
him in.

I have often stated that this is the basis of my belief that virtually all
cops are dirty.  By not turning in every fellow officer whom they suspect
of violating department regulations, they become just as guilty as the ones
who do.

The bottom line in a case such as Abner Louima's is that the fact that no
cop from that precinct was on the phone to Internal Affairs before Louima
even made it to the hospital indicts EVERY cop in the precinct who was
aware of the attack.  And they don't even have to be aware of the extent of
the attack; as soon as they sensed any amount of excessive force, they
incurred an immediate moral obligation to report it to their superiors. 
Those who did not are morally culpable and cannot claim to be
"honest" cops.

Rich

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