“Let it be known that just because you’re having a mental health crisis doesn’t mean you should be sentenced to death — and that police officer, on the side of that street, was the judge, the jury and the executioner,” attorney Ben Crump said at a news conference Thursday, the first time King’s family has appeared publicly in connection with the case.
Crump, a civil rights attorney who also represented the family of George Floyd, said King’s mental health declined after the death of his mother in 2009.
The family said they’d been trying to get him adequate long-term treatment. They said he would cycle through the criminal justice system, receiving medication while he was incarcerated, and then slip through the cracks again after his release.
Recently, he was hearing voices and showing signs of intense paranoia, relatives said. Convinced people were surveilling him, he would put tape over cell phone cameras, electric outlets and even the emblems on his sneakers.
“That’s how bad it was,” said his father, Stephenson King Sr., a retired state corrections officer. “That’s why I was trying to get some help for my son.”
Hours before the shooting, Stephenson King Sr. called an ambulance for his son, who had been injured in an assault days earlier. Medics said they were taking him to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
“That’s the last time I saw my son,” he said.
Police had pursued King after he allegedly committed a carjacking outside a pizza restaurant in Boston’s Mission Hill neighborhood. About 15 minutes later, officers stopped the stolen car less than a mile away, at Linwood Square in Roxbury.
The driver ignored verbal commands as officers approached the car on foot and then tried to drive away, according to police. A nearby resident who witnessed the shooting told the Globe the situation escalated extremely quickly.
According to a police report, King opened the car window at the command of police officers, but did not turn the vehicle off. Positioned outside the driver’s side window, O’Malley drew a department-issued Taser and shouted, “Bro, I’m going to [expletive] shoot you,” according to the police report.
At that moment, King backed into the cruiser behind him, then maneuvered the vehicle forward and back “in an attempt to escape the police,” according to the report.
Also on Thursday, Boston attorney David Yannetti, who recently represented Karen Read, announced he’s been retained to represent O’Malley.
In the Read case, Yannetti said in a written statement, he “spent nearly four years zealously fighting a district attorney’s office that protected bad police officers while prosecuting an innocent woman.” Now, he plans to “zealously fight another district attorney’s office that is apparently choosing to protect criminals while prosecuting good police officers,” the statement said.
“Officer Nicholas O’Malley has always maintained a stellar record as a sworn Boston police officer,” Yannetti said. “He is an exemplary family man, a husband and a father to young children. He chose to become a police officer for all the right reasons.”
This is a developing story that will be updated.
Lea Skene can be reached at lea.skene@globe.com. Follow her on X @lea_skene.