BOSTON (WHDH) - A grand jury indicted a Boston police officer for voluntary manslaughter in the March shooting death of a 39-year-old Dorchester man, Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden announced Wednesday.
Nicholas O’Malley, 34, first appeared in Boston Municipal Court in March after he was accused of shooting and killing carjacking suspect Stephenson King Jr. A grand jury has now decided there is enough evidence to charge O’Malley with manslaughter in a higher court, and he will be arraigned in Suffolk Superior Court at a later date.
The victim’s family is represented by national civil rights attorney Ben Crump. In a statement, Crump said the move “…sends a powerful message about the seriousness of this case. This family knows that accountability cannot stop here. They deserve the full truth about what happened to Stephenson…”
In a statement, O’Malley’s Defense Attorney David Yannetti wrote, “This indictment was a foregone conclusion once they made the ill-advised decision to charge Officer O’Malley with a crime, even though he was just doing his job and protecting the public.”
On March 11, Boston police responded to a report of a stolen vehicle on Linwood Square in Roxbury at approximately 10 p.m. Police said when officers arrived, King was sitting in a stolen car before he backed into an unoccupied police cruiser and started to drive away.
O’Malley fired his police-issued gun, killing King. He said he fired because he believed another officer was in danger of being struck and killed by the car during King’s escape attempt.
The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office claims that police body camera video of the incident shows O’Malley’s actions were not justified.
King’s family had pushed to view that body camera video while the case was unfolding. Following the grand jury’s indictment, they were shown the moments leading up to their loved one’s death, as well as the police encounter and how the situation ended that night.
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