The Chicago police officer who fatally shot black teenager Laquan McDonald intentionally damaged his dashcam and never synced his microphone to it. And he's not the only one.
More than 1,800 police maintenance logs first obtained by DNAinfo Chicago show a disturbing trend of Chicago cops intentionally and routinely tampering with their dashcams and mics in an effort to block audio.
Jason Van Dyke, the officer charged with fatally shooting 17-year-old McDonald in October 2014, caused "intentional damage" to his dashcam at least once, along with other instances of his dashcam breaking, the logs show. The day of the killing, audio wasn't picked up by Van Dyke's car, nor by the squad car next to his.
Here is that video.
Originally the police claimed that there was no need for dashcams and bodycams because the incidents of police brutality were so far and few between.
Since the introduction of these devices we have learned that not only is that not true, but that the incidents are more widespread and constant than anybody had anticipated.
So widespread in fact that now cops are trying to destroy evidence of their crimes so that they can continue abusing their power and stomping on the rights of the people they are sworn to protect.
If anything I think it is clear that not only do we need more cameras, but that there needs to be some serious oversight controlling the officer's ability to interfere with their audio and visual recordings.
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