Boston police officer charged with manslaughter adds attorney from Karen Read case

The defense attorney who represented Karen Read in her murder case is now defending Nicholas O’Malley, the Boston police officer who fatally shot a Dorchester man last month and is facing criminal charges.

David Yannetti, a high-profile local defense attorney, was added to the case on Wednesday, according to court documents and a press release from his office.

Meanwhile, the family of the man killed, Stephenson King Jr., announced that they have retained high-profile civil rights attorney Ben Crump, whose previous clients include the families of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd.

Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden charged O’Malley with manslaughter just over a week after the March 11 shooting, a move that has infuriated and invigorated law enforcement officers and their supporters across the state.

O’Malley, 33, confronted 39-year old King shortly after King allegedly carjacked a woman in Roxbury and drove away in the stolen vehicle. According to the police report filed in the manslaughter case, when King attempted to escape, O’Malley said he fired his weapon because he believed another responding officer, Todd Ho, was going to be run over.

“Although that was his stated perception,” the report stated, “[body-worn 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 state that neither officer was in the path of the vehicle as it drove away.”

Two Boston city councilors are pushing to get body camera footage from the shooting. At a hearing Tuesday, councilors pushed for clarity on the police department's policies for releasing footage. Boston police attorney David Fredette said BPD cooperates with the district attorney’s office, which has said it won’t turn over footage while a death investigation is ongoing.

Freshman Councilor Miniard Culpepper, who’s found allyship in Councilor Brian Worrell on the issue, fought hard against the attorney’s argument and told WBUR he was exploring using the council’s authority to subpoena for the footage.

Culpepper said he was said he was disappointed Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox didn’t show up for the hearing. He’s moved to have the council vote to summon Cox, compelling him to testify, a highly unusual, strong-arm move for the body.

In a statement posted to X, Yannetti described O’Malley as a “a good man who finds himself falsely accused of manslaughter because he performed his sworn duty and defended his fellow officers when confronted by a dangerous criminal with an established history of violence and felonies.”

Yannetti previously served as a prosecutor in the Middlesex County District Attorney's office. While there, he secured convictions against the two men who killed Jeffrey Curley, the 10-year-old Cambridge boy abducted, sexually assaulted and murdered in 1997.

Along with Los Angeles-based attorney Alan Jackson, Yannetti represented Karen Read in two second-degree murder trials, the first ending in a mistrial and the second in an acquittal. Read was accused of hitting and killing her Boston police officer boyfriend, John O'Keefe, in 2022. The defense alleged a massive police coverup and corruption that included the district attorney's office.

In his statement on O'Malley, Yannetti framed the charges brought by Hayden as another fight against a district attorney’s office “that is apparently choosing to protect criminals while prosecuting good police officers.”

“We will not rest,” the statement continued, “until officer O’Malley is rightfully acquitted.”

More than 4,000 donations have rolled into a GoFundMe to support the O’Malley family. As of Thursday morning, it had raised more than $500,000.

A spokesperson Hayden's his office said they had no comment on Yannetti joining O'Malley's case.

The attorney for King's family, Ben Crump, said the family “deserves the full truth, real accountability, and justice that is not delayed or denied. We will not stop fighting until they get it.” They planned to hold a joint press conference Thursday at the Grant A.M.E Church in Roxbury with the Boston NAACP, Black Ministerial Alliance of Boston and Greater Boston Interfaith Organization.

Hayden is running for reelection this year and faces at least two challengers who jumped into the race this week: Linda Champion, a former member of his leadership team, and Rachael Rollins, who previously held the seat.

Rollins left the post in 2022 to serve as U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts. But she resigned under pressure in May 2023 following an investigation that found "an extraordinary abuse of her power."

She was accused of meddling in the hotly contested race between Hayden and his challenger, Ricardo Arroyo, allegedly leaking non-public Department of Justice information to a reporter to malign Hayden and help Arroyo. Arroyo ultimately lost the race.