Police Were at Burger King with Missing Security Footage on the Night of Laquan McDonald's Death
NBC 5 News has obtained screengrabs of interior video footage from the Burger King near where police shot and killed Laquan McDonald last year, appearing to show Chicago police at a computer terminal the night of the shooting. Over an hour of footage is missing from the store’s security video.
Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke shot McDonald at 9:57 p.m. According to Jay Darshane, a district manager for Burger King, footage is missing from 9:13 to 10:39 p.m.
Darshane said that both cameras—both indoor and outdoor—and video recorder were working properly that night, and that between four and five police officers came into the store, specifically to delete the tape.
“We had no idea they were going to sit there and delete files,” Darshane said. “I mean we were just trying to help the police officers.”
What happened to the video is disputed. Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez said testing showed the computer files had not been tampered with.
Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said there appeared to have been technical difficulties.
But as we first reported last May, a Burger King district manager said police deleted the security footage after spending more than three hours in the restaurant.
“Forensic testing was done on the Burger King surveillance system to determine if anyone tampered with the evidence and the testing did not reveal any such evidence,” Alvarez said at a press conference last week.
Image via NBC 5 News. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.