By Charlie McKenna
masslive.com
BOSTON — A Boston Police officer was indicted on a manslaughter charge on Wednesday in the fatal shooting of a man while responding to a call for a carjacking in March, Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden’s office announced.
The indictment handed up by a grand jury on Wednesday came a day before Officer Nicholas O’Malley was set to appear in the Roxbury division of Boston Municipal Court. After his indictment, prosecutors formally closed the municipal court case.
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O’Malley will be arraigned in Suffolk Superior Court before a clerk magistrate on June 4.
O’Malley fatally shot 39-year-old Stephenson King Jr. in Roxbury on March 11 — he was arrested on a manslaughter charge eight days later. The indictment was the expected next step and formally moved the case to Suffolk Superior Court.
O’Malley has said he believed he and his partner were in imminent danger from King, who prosecutors say had just carjacked a woman.
But prosecutors have said body-camera footage contradicts O’Malley’s account of what happened and shows there was no legal justification for the use of deadly force. The footage has not been released publicly.
In a statement, O’Malley’s defense lawyers — David Yannetti and Christina Pujals Ronan — said the indictment was a “foregone conclusion” after Hayden’s office made the “ill-advised decision” to charge O’Malley with a crime.
The lawyers also criticized prosecutors’ decision to close the pending case ahead of a hearing, saying it represented a break from the way cases traditionally play out. They claimed that prosecutors closed the case to prevent several motions they filed from being heard in court.
Last week, O’Malley’s defense filed a series of motions seeking information about King’s criminal history, indicating in court papers that he had at least 17 criminal cases.
“The D.A.’s office has provided minimal discovery to the defense, despite the fact that the case has been pending in court for over two months,” the lawyers wrote in a statement posted to X hours after the indictment on Wednesday. “Our firm has contacted the prosecution today to demand basic, mandatory discovery immediately.”
“We will fully investigate this case and get to the truth, despite the roadblocks they attempt to put in front of us,” the statement reads.
Prosecutors met with King’s family on Wednesday to show them the footage, Hayden’s office said.
In a statement, attorney Ben Crump, who is representing the family, said the indictment “sends a powerful message about the seriousness of this case.”
“This family knows that accountability cannot stop here,” he said. “For months, Stephenson King Jr .’s loved ones have been grieving the devastating loss of a son, a family member and a man whose life mattered deeply, while also fighting for the transparency and accountability they deserve.”
Crump didn’t respond to a request for comment on what is shown in the body-camera footage, which he and the family had repeatedly asked Hayden’s office to release.
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