A Boston police officer has been charged with manslaughter in connection with the deadly shooting of a carjacking suspect last week.
Nicholas O’Malley, 33, of Boston, was arrested Thursday morning and was arraigned in Roxbury District Court in connection with the fatal shooting of Stephenson King, 39, of Dorchester, on March 11. He entered a not guilty plea and was released on personal recognizance, with a condition that he surrender any firearms in his possession.
Court paperwork said the manslaughter charge against O’Malley is for “assaulting and beating Stephenson King when they knew or reasonably should have known that the battery endangered human life.” Police reports included in court documents also detail how O’Malley shot King three times even though neither he nor his partner were in danger of being struck by his car and King was not armed.
The matter will be put to a grand jury, Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden said Thursday.
The defense pushed back, calling the arrest “election-year tactics” and defending his client’s actions.
“They can say whatever they want about my client being able to see where his partner was because his body worn camera could see it. But that body-worn camera does not have human adrenaline, that body-worn camera does not have human adrenaline is not worried about not seeing somebody’s hands. That body-worn camera is not worried about going home safe at night,” defense attorney Kenneth Anderson said. “My client’s perception is what matters here and he stands by his actions. I think at the end of this case, he’s going to walk away as an innocent man.”
Hayden denied that the election was a motivation for the charges and said officials would not be releasing the body camera footage.
“Neither my office nor the Boston Police Department will be releasing any further evidence, including any body-worn camera footage to the public. To do so would clearly compromise and imperil the ongoing investigation and crucial prosecution of this most serious matter,” Hayden said outside court after O’Malley’s arraignment.
[Read the full contents of the police report here.]Police responded to Linwood Square just before 10 p.m. last Wednesday after a carjacking on Tremont Street in Mission Hill.
Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox said at a press conference held that night that the officers approached the vehicle on foot, giving multiple verbal commands, and the suspect did not comply.
“At some point, the suspect accelerated his vehicle, striking a Boston police cruiser in an attempt to flee. Officers discharged their weapons, hitting the suspect,” Cox said.
The shooting happened after Boston police officers responded to Linwood Square just before 10 p.m. Wednesday for a reported carjacking.
The suspect was transported to an area hospital, where he was pronounced dead. He was later identified as King.
A Boston police spokesperson said the suspect had tried to hit the officers with the vehicle.
Hayden said at the time that the officers involved in the incident were taken to a hospital to be treated for any trauma they experienced, but that they were not believed to have been injured.
Police said at the time that the incident was under investigation by the Suffolk District Attorney’s Office, per protocol.
Boston police said the suspect tried to hit responding officers on Linwood Square.
Boston City Councilors Miniard Culpepper and Brian Worrell said in a statement Monday they were closely monitoring the situation, and that it was important to fully understood what happened and ensure that appropriate measures are being taken.
“First and foremost, our thoughts and prayers are with the family of the man who lost his life. We are deeply saddened by this incident. Anytime we see a young man die in our community, it is a cause for serious concern,” the councilors said in a joint statement. “We also want to make sure that Boston Police officers are able to do their jobs safely while maintaining the trust and safety of the community they serve.”
Culpepper and Worrell said they were calling for the body camera footage to be released, arguing it’s critical for transparency and accountability.
“We are also hopeful that the Office of Police Accountability will work alongside this investigation to help ensure public trust as the facts come to light,” they added.
Court documents released Thursday reveal new details about why O’Malley was charged in the incident, with a police report dated March 19, showing investigators determined there was probable cause to believe that O’Malley committed the crime of voluntary manslaughter based on “physical evidence and numerous witness interviews,” specifically that he “1) committed an act intended or likely to cause death, 2) did cause Stephenson King’s death, and 3) was not acting in proper self-defense or defense of another.”
The officers involved in responding to the carjacking were both wearing Body-Worn Cameras, police report shows.
“As captured on their BWC’s as well as partial witness statements, both officers, firearms drawn, began to yell commands to King such as: show me your hands, shut off the vehicle and unlock the vehicle. King did show the officers his hands at times, did partially open his driver’s window, but did not shut off the vehicle or unlock the doors,” the report said.
The report said O’Malley, outside the driver’s window and while holstering his gun in favor of a Taser, then shouted to King: “Bro, I’m gonna (expletive) shoot you.” King immediately put the car in reverse and backed into the cruiser behind him.
King then maneuvered his vehicle forward, reverse, and forward again in an attempt to escape police. At the moment when the vehicle began to move forward the last time, the police report said O’Malley again drew his gun and fired three shots at King through the driver’s window.
An autopsy performed on King on March 13 determined that he had been struck by three projectiles, two of which were recovered from his torso. Investigators found a third projectile in the passenger’s area of the carjacking victim’s vehicle. No weapons were recovered from the vehicle or King’s body.
The report said that after he fired his gun, O’Malley did broadcast that officers were involved in a discharge and that the suspect “tried to run us over.” Based on the body camera footage and interviews of officers, the report said that statement was not found to be “factually true.”
During his interview with investigators, O’Malley said he fired his gun because he thought the other office with him was going to be crushed by the suspect’s vehicle. But the report said the body camera footage “revealed that such a belief was unreasonable, and that neither officer was in danger of being struck by the vehicle at the time of Officer O’Malley’s discharge.” An eyewitness who observed the incident also said that neither officer was in the path of the vehicle as it drove away.
The report said that although the law allows police officers to use deadly force when reasonably necessary, it also says that police “shall not discharge any firearm into or at a fleeing motor vehicle unless, based on the totality of the circumstances, such discharge is necessary to prevent imminent harm to a person and the discharge is proportionate to the threat of imminent harm to a person.”
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