Boston lawyers' group sues police for footage in fatal police shooting

Catch up quick: King was trying to drive off in a car he had allegedly stolen in an unarmed carjacking in Roxbury when an officer shot him, police say.

• Officer Nicholas O'Malley, a Randolph resident, pleaded not guilty to manslaughter charges the following week.
• BPD has denied several public records requests seeking the footage, including from Axios.

Driving the news: Lawyers for Civil Rights filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the Boston Police Department and the Suffolk District Attorney's Office demanding bodycam and dashcam footage of the incident.

• The lawsuit argues that the DA's office "mischaracterized" its request as one seeking case materials and denied it, citing the "investigatory" exemption.

What they're saying: "Few records implicate a greater public interest than footage of a police officer taking a life," said Victoria Miranda, a senior Attorney at LCR.

• "The public has a right to see what happened."

The other side: District Attorney Hayden declined to comment on the lawsuit, but his office noted that prosecutors requested a protective order for the footage in July.

• They argued that releasing the footage to the public would "expose the jury pool not just to footage of the homicide itself, but to a barrage of inadmissible commentary about it."
• Judge Joshua Wall approved the motion last week.

What we're watching: Unless the lawsuit succeeds, the footage will remain shielded from public view at least until the trial.