VALDOSTA, Ga. — A music video released this week features a controversial statement that links an internationally known R&B music superstar to a Georgia teen whose 2013 death remains a topic of national conversation.

The video for recording artist Usher’s latest single, “Chains”, features a visualization stating hours of school surveillance footage in the Kendrick Johnson case have “mysteriously disappeared” — a claim officials said Wednesday is untrue.

“As part of our investigation, we requested a copy of the gym surveillance footage for the relevant time period, and the school cooperated and provided that to us,” Jim Elliott, legal counsel for the Lowndes County (Georgia) Sheriff’s Office (LCSO), said. “There is no information to suggest that any surveillance video is missing or has disappeared, and we believe that the statement to the contrary is false.”

Nearly three years ago, Johnson’s body was found upside down in a vertically stored gym mat at his high school in Valdosta, Georgia. Soon after, a state autopsy ruled the 17-year-old’s death accidental. The Johnson family insists their son died of foul play. U.S. Attorney Michael Moore has been conducting a review of the case for nearly two years.

The music video, which could be described as more of an interactive experience than a traditional music video, was released Tuesday via music streaming service Tidal.

Subscribing users who view the clip must continually look at their screens or the video will stop playing. Tidal accesses computer webcams, with permission, and uses facial recognition to create the unique viewing experience.

The minimalist video presents stark, black and white images of eight individuals and brief summaries of the circumstances surrounding their deaths, including Johnson, Trayvon Martin and Rekia Boyd.

A disclaimer at the beginning of “Chains” states the descriptions included in the video were taken from “publicly available accounts of what transpired but are only intended to be a brief summary of the circumstances.” The video does not, however, include the sources from which the information was gathered.

The video ends with a call to action regarding racial injustice: “Facing the facts is the first step towards change.”

But local officials said the facts are wrong in the brief summary statement included with an image of Johnson, the fifth person who appears in the “Chains” video.

The video claims “Kendrick was found dead in his high school gym. Hours of surveillance camera footage from the gym has since mysteriously disappeared. No one has ever been charged.”

School hard drives containing the original video footage were put in a vault following the discovery of Johnson’s body and remained there until they were seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to Warren Turner, legal counsel for the county school board.

“[The footage] has been preserved since the incident, and the only people who have had access is law enforcement. The school has not tampered with the videos or allowed anyone to tamper with them,” Turner said. “The sheriff’s office never took possession of the hard drives.”

The FBI seized the hard drives in December 2013 as a part of U.S. Attorney Moore’s review of the case. Neither Moore nor the FBI have released a report or statement concerning the integrity of the original videos.

LCSO detectives used copies of the original videos to aid in their investigation. In November 2013, local media published an in-depth investigation of the copied video included in the sheriff’s office investigative case file and was unable to find any evidence indicating the videos had been tampered with or evidence that would suggest video was missing.

However, it appears a few hours of footage were not recorded due to the system’s pixel-change activated cameras, which record images based on a percentage of pixels that change from image-to-image instead of using a motion sensor, according to manufacturer documents.The recording gaps occur mostly in the early morning hours before Johnson is last seen on video entering the school’s old gym and the late night hours following his disappearance.

The Valdosta (Georgia) Daily Times contributed details to this story.