The Chicago offi­cer who killed Laquan McDonald nev­er synced his micro­phone to his dash­cam and even inten­tion­al­ly dam­aged the cam­era, accord­ing to police main­te­nance logs. What’s worse: He’s not the only offi­cer to do so. Over 1800 logs first obtained by DNAinfo Chicago show that offi­cers reg­u­lar­ly dam­age their cam­eras or find ways to keep the sound from sync­ing. Their meth­ods include hid­ing micro­phones in glove box­es, pulling out the bat­ter­ies, dam­ag­ing anten­nae, and so on. The logs showed that Jason Van Dyke, the offi­cer involved in the Laquan McDonald shoot­ing, caused “inten­tion­al dam­age” to his dash­cam at least once, though the logs indi­cate that the dash­cam was bro­ken mul­ti­ple times. On the day of the shoot­ing, the audio for the video was not picked up by his car or the one next to his.

One month after the shoot­ing, a Nov. 21 review of 10 videos down­loaded from Van Dyke’s squad car deter­mined it was “appar­ent … that per­son­nel have failed to sync the MICs [sic],” accord­ing police records. Of the five police vehi­cles that were present the night of the shoot­ing, only two had dash­cams that actu­al­ly record­ed video, and one of those was report­ed­ly bro­ken. Records show that, five days before the shoot­ing, a request was put in to repair the dash­cam, though “no prob­lem” was found with the equip­ment when it was exam­ined October 31. One week lat­er, the sys­tem was report­ed­ly bro­ken again, with a “hard­ware issue” remain­ing unad­dressed for four months. Three addi­tion­al dash­cams were unable to cap­ture footage the night of the shoot­ing, due to sys­tem mal­func­tions that inclue: “Power issue,” “disc error” and “appli­ca­tion error.”

It was not until McDonald was shot and killed by Officer Jason Van Dyke that Chicago PD rec­og­nized the wide­spread issue of offi­cers inten­tion­al­ly tam­per­ing with dash­cams and dash­cam micro­phones. Following the release of the one dash­cam video of the shoot­ing, Van Dyke has been charged with first degree mur­der.
Report: Officer Van Dyke inten­tion­al­ly broke dash­cam before Laquan McDonald shooting

The lead­ers of the occu­pa­tion of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, includ­ing Ammon Bundy, have been arrest­ed after a shootout with law enforce­ment offi­cials about 15 miles north of Burns on Tuesday night.

One of the mili­tia mem­bers was shot and killed dur­ing the con­fronta­tion, and though the iden­ti­ty of the deceased has not yet been released, many reports on the ground indi­cate that the deceased is LaVoy Finicum, who spoke at length about how he would rather die than be tak­en into cus­tody. State Rep. Michele Fiore (R‑Nevada), who speaks direct­ly to the Bundy fam­i­ly, has con­firmed Finicum was the casu­al­ty in the shootout.

Also among those arrest­ed were Ryan W. Payne, Brian Cavalier, and Shawna J. Cox. They have all been charged with felony counts of imped­ing offi­cers of the US from dis­charg­ing their offi­cial duties through the use of force, intim­i­da­tion or threats. Ryan Bundy of Bunkerville, Nevada, suf­fered a minor gun­shot wound but is in sta­ble con­di­tion and is expect­ed to be charged with the others.

The FBI, Oregon State troop­ers, and oth­er law enforce­ment agen­cies were all involved in the gun­fight and sub­se­quent arrest, but it is unclear who shot first.

The inci­dent appar­ent­ly began with a traf­fic stop that occurred while Bundy and his sup­port­ers made a trip to a meet­ing in the neigh­bor­ing town of John Day. Highway 395 has been tem­porar­i­ly closed between Burns and John Day.

Harney District Hospital, where some of the mil­i­tants involved in the gun­fight have been treat­ed, is also on lockdown.

In a sep­a­rate inci­dent the same night, Oregon Police arrest­ed Joseph Donald O’Shaughnessy, a sup­port­er of the Bundy occupation.

Ammon Bundy, along with dozens of oth­er armed right-wing extrem­ists, occu­pied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge on Jan 2 to protest the government’s treat­ment of Steven and Dwight Hammond, local ranch­ers who were con­vict­ed of com­mit­ting arson on fed­er­al land adja­cent to their prop­er­ty. The Hammonds declined Bundy’s sup­port, and the armed mili­tia group has been crit­i­cized and derid­ed by the vast major­i­ty of locals in the area. They have also found them­selves sub­ject tocon­fronta­tions with rival groups, inte­ri­or con­flicts and fist­fights, and pranks from detrac­tors as they have con­tin­ued their occupation.