Burger King: Chicago shooting video altered

Tom Vanden Brook | USA TODAY

A Chicago Burger King manager says that he testified before a grand jury this week about police deleting surveillance video that may have captured images of a black teenager in the moments before he was shot by a white officer there, according to local media reports.

Officer Jason Van Dyke has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of Laquan McDonald. Court-ordered release of squad car, dashcam video of the Oct. 24 confrontation shows Van Dyke shooting McDonald 16 times.

Jay Darshane, the Burger King manager, has accused police of erasing the restaurant's surveillance tape. He also told the Chicago Tribune that the FBI seized the video recorder containing all of its surveillance images.

Lawyers for McDonald's family told the paper that the video likely would not show footage of the shooting but may have shown his movements just prior to his death. After police examined the video the night of the shooting, Burger King employees said there was an unexplained 86-minute gap in its footage that covers the time of the shooting.

Authorities in Chicago, including the police superintendent, have labeled untrue allegations that police deleted key video footage.

Release of the dashcam video sparked several days of demonstrations in downtown Chicago. Protesters demanded reforms to Chicago police, and sought to disrupt Black Friday shopping on Chicago's glittering Magnificent Mile.