Jenna. What's up, boo? Do you remember that text that I sent you a couple months ago about surveillance cameras?

Can you be more specific? Well, this particular text about surveillance cameras was basically around an epiphany that I had

while I was sitting down at my table, eating my breakfast, reading the newspaper. And all it said was, can you imagine how different

the 1800s would have been if they had just had surveillance cameras? Yeah, I remember this. And do you remember what your response to my big epiphany was?

I was like, what the hell are you talking about? Everything would be exactly the same because either nobody would believe the footage or worse, nobody would care.

I'm Jenna Wortham. And I'm Wesley Morris. We're two culturators at the New York Times and we don't know what's real anymore. This is still processing. Or is it?

So Jenna, that text that I sent you a couple months ago, that was right around the time of the Laquan McDonald trial. Yes.

Laquan McDonald, of course, being the 17 year old who was shot by the officer Jason Van Dyke in 2014, 16 times, all on the streets of Chicago.

And the police report basically said that McDonald had lunged at Van Dyke with a knife. And people just didn't seem to believe that are they when it proof that it had happened.

But it took 13 months for the city of Chicago to call up the footage. Yes.

During these 13 months of people begging for this footage to be released, the dash cam footage, the police cruz or dash cam footage of what actually happened that night between Jason Van Dyke and Laquan McDonald.

The city settles a lawsuit for Laquan McDonald's family for $5 million based on the footage that the city won't release.

So we know something's in there or the people of Chicago knew that there was something in there.

And so 13 months later, they actually do release it. Big, big outcry.

Yeah.

I remember this.

Yeah.

Not suppressed, but it's nobody wanted to deal with what would happen if the footage came out.

Right.

It was like just too much proof.

Yeah.

And basically when they released it, what it showed was exactly why we understood Chicago paid this family $5 million.

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