While the two cases are different in nature, together they crystallize how the nation's second-largest police department has been systemically and historically plagued by corruption and accusations of excessive force, policing experts and activists say.

These scandals feature officers "who had engaged and amassed patterns of complaints — repeated complaint after complaint that were ignored, whitewashed and most importantly, the department and city refused as a policy and practice to examine those patterns of complaints," said Craig Futterman, a University of Chicago law professor who has been critical of the Chicago Police Department.

"To date, the underlying conditions have yet to be addressed and reckoned with in those cases," he added.

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