On Oct 20th 2014, Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke and 17-year-old Laquan McDonald had a fatal encounter in the parking lot of a Burger King, resulting in McDonald being shot sixteen times.
On Tuesday this week, Officer Van Dyke was indicted on first-degree murder, with the entire incident captured on his squad car's dash-cam.
The police claimed that releasing the dash-cam footage would hamper ongoing investigations, but last week a judge ruled that the footage needed to be released. In the wake of that decision, major protests have been sparked as several hundred people blocked traffic on the city's West Side.
However, Burger King district manager Jay Darshane stated that almost an hour and a half of footage from their security cameras has disappeared from the night of the shooting.
Darshane told NBC that four to five police officers wearing blue and white shirts entered the restaurant asking to view the video, and were given the password to the equipment. Three hours later they left.
The next day, when an investigator from the Independent Police Review Authority asked to view the security footage, it was discovered that 86 minutes of video was missing.
Burger King came out publicly and stated that Chicago Police deleted their footage on the murder of #LaquanMcDonald pic.twitter.com/VFA3unJWps
— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) November 24, 2015
Speaking to NBC, Darshane stated that "we had no idea they were going to sit there and delete files. [...] I mean we were just trying to help the police officers".
The 86 minutes of missing footage reportedly runs from 9.13pm to 10.39pm approximately, and McDonald is reported to have been shot at 9.50pm.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Independent Police Review Authority released a statement: "We have no credible evidence at this time that would cause us to believe CPD purged or erased any surveillance video.”
