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A
This is crime and justice. I'm Donna Rotuno. A Boston police officer charged with manslaughter in the shooting death of a carjacking suspect.
B
Bad guys throughout this country are now emboldened because the consequences are weak. And you're backed up by democratic left das that don't want to punish you because it's not your fault, it's everybody else's fault.
A
A community torn in what's shaping up to be a historic case. Foreign. Let's bring in FOX News correspondent Molly Line. Tell me what's going on on the ground in Boston.
C
Yeah, a pretty incredible case actually. And people that are advocates for the police have argued that this is such a shock, it hasn't been seen for decades. But we have a Boston police officer now facing a manslaughter charge after shooting a carjacking suspect. So someone who had been wanted, they were seeking this car, pursuing the car and the individual. But the officer is getting quite an outpouring of support. In fact, when he stood in that courtroom last week, it was filled with the blue his fellow police officers showing up, filling those stands, standing in solidarity with him. His name is Officer Nicholas o'. Malley. He stood before that judge. It was last a Thursday and it was little more than a week before that that this incident had occurred. The 33 year old officer is charged in the shooting death of 39 year old Stevenson King little more than a week prior. There were reports that King had a long rap sheet as well. We'll probably get into more of that in a moment. But Ali claimed, per the documents and I have all the police reports here that he had feared for his fellow officer safety and that the suspect had tried to, quote, run us over. So here are a few of the details when you get into this police report, King had attacked a woman. So he attacks this woman, carjacks her car. He drives off. Officers soon catch up to King who is refusing orders, refusing to shut off the vehicle, refusing to unlock the doors, refusing to get out of the vehicle. And the report says that o' Malley first holstered his firearm and pulls out the Taser. And at that point in time, o' Malley reportedly says to King that he's going to shoot. This is when King begins to maneuver with the vehicle. Here's the quote, maneuvered his vehicle forward, reverse and forward again, quote, o' Malley again drew his firearm. And this is when the shots were fired at King through that driver's side window. King was pronounced dead at a local hospital. And in just a little more than a week, the Charges were pressed. Now, the, the prosecutor in this case is a man named Kevin Hayden, the D. A. He is a Democrat. He's running for re election, but he has argued that politics plays no part in this. But it's been very interesting to see the political fallout on this in Boston, which, of course, blue city and a blue state has been very mixed. And there are council members, for instance, coming forward both to support the officers, to support the Boston Police Department, but also to call for greater transparency for the release of body cam footage in this case and also specifically where, regardless of where, the city council coming down on this issue, calling that there for there to be no rush to judgment in this case.
A
Donna? Well, it's so interesting to say that they don't want to rush to judgment, but yet they charge this officer within seven or eight days of this happening without any real investigation. I mean, to investigate something like this. And, and, and you know, that's a residential area. There's cameras on people's houses, there's body cameras, there's people that you can talk to along the path of, of travel that this carjacking vehicle took. And when you think about it, this woman is in her car and she goes to pick up her daughter, I've read, and she goes to pick up her daughter, and she slides over in the car so the daughter can drive. And then this person jumps in the car and, and assaults her, hits her in the face, I believe, gets her out of the vehicle and then drives away in this car. So not only do we have multiple crimes that happen before that car is even driven away from its first location, but then that car is given multiple chances to stop, pull over, it's being chased by police and still is violating the law and then still has a chance to surrender and doesn't do it. And then this is, this is what this turns into. So the fact that the police officer was charged this quickly and charged really by the prosecutor's office and not through a grand jury process, and just so the, the listeners and viewers understand the difference there. So normally what happens is charges are filed and charges are what we call what the, the matter in which you can be held. But formal charges do not come down until a case either has a preliminary hearing or goes to a grand jury, where grand juries listen to the evidence and determine if there are enough pieces of evidence to move that case forward. So here, there has not even been a grand jury indictment yet. We just have charges filed by the police in a short period of time. Do I, do I have that right?
C
Yeah. This is essentially why the district attorney in this case is catching some flack. They're arguing that he moved too swiftly in this prosecution and that this grand jury could have lent additional credibility had they come down with charges. We don't know that that would be the case. But, for instance, I. I just want to layer a little contest into this and some of the political fallout. As I mentioned, Blue City, Blue State Councilor Murphy, Erin Murphy had this to say. She said a life was lost, and that is always serious. But we also have to be honest about the full context. Public reporting shows that the individual had a long criminal history, multiple open cases, repeated violations, and was out on bail at the time of this incident. That matters. It matters for public safety, and it matters when we talk about what happened that night. Ignoring those facts does not serve the public, and it does not serve justice.
A
Well, I think she.
C
There are counselors. There are some counselors coming to sort of back up this officer to say, hey, wait a minute here. Here's another one. I think this is an even more powerful statement from Ed Fl, another counselor. He says, as a city, we should not rush to judgment and immediately second guess Boston Police Officer Nick Ali while this criminal case goes forward. The city of Boston should not penalize Police Officer Om Ali and his family by taking away his health care and insurance salary. Police Officer Omali answered a call for help. A woman was carjacked, punched in the face, and thrown in the street when she called 911. Officer O' Malley and the brave men and women of the Boston Police Department answered the call. So that is part of this as well, that there is a context here, a greater context, that even those in city leadership are saying, hey, we need to take a step back here and. And look at this very closely and give this officer some benefit of the doubt. At least that's what this particular counselor is arguing.
A
Well, sure. I mean, he's coming to work every day, and his job is to serve and protect the people of that community, and the people of that community elect those council people that are making those statements. And I think what we're seeing happen, as it happens in many issues. Right. That we deal with in our country, whether you look at the MeToo movement or you look at the progressive movement, or anything that you see when the pendulum swings too far, at some point, it has to swing back. And Boston over the last several years, with the mayor and with the way politics has been going, like a lot of our bigger cities, has gone very progressive. And I think what you start to see is that when these progressive policies, A, not only don't work, but B, threaten the actual security and safety of its own citizens, that's when people start to rise up. And I think what we're seeing here is people in Boston are thinking, wait, what if I'm the person in that car and I'm the one that gets tossed out of my car and I'm the one that gets punched in the face? Who am I calling to help? I'm calling Officer Oma Ali and I need Officer o' Malley to show up. And if we continue to just vilify these police officers, the officers are going to stop showing up.
C
Yeah, and a quick point on that about the public and the public outpouring for this officer. There's a GoFundMe that is already coming in on close to $500,000 in support of this officer's family. And that's why Flynn's statement, Councilor Flynn's statement, I think raises this point about health care insurance and salary, that this is a young officer, 33 years old, that has a young family. And so that's all playing into how the public is viewing this as well. And then of course, we're seeing that support from the Patrolman's association and saying, you know, we haven't seen this for decades and standing behind him as well.
A
Yeah, it's really, I agree. It's really unbelievable. Thank you so much for your work down in Boston. This is such an important story. I know that we will going to be Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying. No judgments. But that's weird. Okay, one judgment. Anyway, give it a try. @mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for
C
3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra.
A
See full terms@mintmobile.com we will be following it and we'll definitely come back to you on this as we continue to see how this unfolds. So thank you so much, Molly. Now let's turn to our guest, John Shell, former NYPD Chief of department. So John, you have seen officers vilified in these types of situations one too many times and now here we are talking about this again. What, what do you have to say about what we're, we're Seeing in Boston.
B
Well, the context is perfect here. That was just this explained post. George Floyd. We got into a world with like a New York City bail reform. We got into a world where the cops are the bad guys and the bad guys are good guys. And this perpetrator here, he started this in motion, okay? Not to mention the fact his record, he's out on bail. We shouldn't be having this conversation because she shouldn't have been out of jail. Okay? That's number one. Number two, he assaulted a woman with a daughter and stole her car visa. A carjacking. He had many opportunities to stop. But why doesn't he stop? Well, first, he's probably an arch criminal. But number two, bad guys throughout this country are now emboldened because the consequences are weak. And you're backed up by Democratic left DAs that don't want to punish you because it's not your fault, it's everybody else's fault. So now you have this situation where he carjacks a woman and a daughter, assaults them, doesn't pull over. And then we have to understand that a car is a deadly weapon. That car will kill you. Thousands of pounds coming at you. Then you have an officer who's got to make a split second decision for his partner. And in his mind, he's fearing for his life. Okay? And he's got to take that kind of action. And he does. The da. This is so political. This is a feather in their cap. They want to use this as an example to people that they're on top of the police department. He didn't have to arraign this officer. Put it in front of a grand jury, let them decide, and then we'll take it from there. And on top of everything else, you got the gall to ask for $25,000 bail, one of your people that protects you? Yeah. This is very political and quite disturbing.
A
Let me ask you, when we think about. Okay, police. So as we were just talking about, something happens. A citizen is in danger. Their first instinct and what they're supposed to do. And what are we told to do? Right. Call 91 1. And that's exactly what happens. She calls for the police. The police come to help her. This is a fast moving situation. They don't have time to sit and talk to her about exactly what happened in that moment. She makes the call. She's told this car is driving away. They're chasing after this car. This is a high adrenaline, high stress through a residential area of Boston. So what's going through these police officers? Minds as they're embarking on something like this already puts their safety in question. Minute one, they don't know if this person in the car is a gun.
B
They have to react. And this like, you know, this isn't tv. This is real life, you know, not to be. People have chased a car, let alone a car, just carjacked someone. They don't know who they're dealing with. They don't have any weapons involved, but they respond because they took an oath and they put their life in a line to help their citizens.
A
John, what do we do?
B
Sometimes police work gets messy. It gets messy. It's a contact sport. Sometimes it just is.
A
What do we do to educate the community? Because I think, and, you know, you tell me if you think I'm wrong about this, but I think if we went outside, even in New York City, even in Boston, even in Chicago, if we went outside on the street and we started talking to people about what they expect from their police force, I think most people would fall on the side of. I want them to be there. I want them to protect me. I want them to act when they need to. But what has happened for us to move so far away from that? And where's the disconnect from what people truly believe to what's actually being voted for? What do we need to do to turn.
B
This is a great point. When you go out into the street and you talk to the people who are from the community, they want more police. They want proactive police. They don't subscribe to what we hear as the fringes all the time. That's the problem. You go into any community, they'll be with us. So we just got to keep doing shows like this to get the word out and.
A
Because do they know what the narrative for? Like, do they not know what they're voting for? Do they not pay attention? Do they not. Do they not vote? Because when you talk to people, they seem incensed about what's going on, but yet these people continue to win elections. And I. I don't know what we need to do, like you said, other than have these conversations to educate people to say, of course you want a safe community, and this is what we need to do to ensure that happens.
B
Well, I think you hit the nail on the head. People have to vote. We celebrated a mayoral election in New York city. We celebrated 2 million people that came out and voted. Prior was barely a million, but we have eight and a half million people in New York City. People have to be informed. And again, shows, podcast shows, like what you're doing. Give them the information in front of them and more people will get involved and vote. Think about that. Eight and a half million people in New York City, and we have a mayor who won through TikTok videos because only 2 million people came out and voted no.
A
It's. No. It's, it's, it's true. It's. And it's very sad and it's very scary. And it affects people like this woman in Boston who's carjacked and punched in the face and thrown out of her car. Now, it affects the officer. So, you know, the officer acts here. I know you and I agree on the fact that he had a right to act the way that he did. And I sure hope that a jury finds that to be the case at some point down the road here. But if this case happened in New York, what is the process in which they make a determination if an officer is going to get charged in a situation like this, what is, what is that?
B
Another great question. Right. In New York City, it goes to the state attorney general. Let's. Issa James, she gets first crack at what she wants to do with it in terms of prosecution. Once she, if she takes it, then she's got the lead. If not, it gets down to the local DA's office and they, and they take a look at it and they'll proceed normally. If she doesn't proceed, the district attorney's not going to proceed normally, but we're not normal times. And that's. It's a scary thought. If you're going to be a proactive cop, it's scary that if you're going to be proactive and things happen that you could be indicted, go to jail, lose your family, all the above.
A
And when it goes through the process, you know, normally, and correct me if I'm wrong, but as a lawyer who's tried cases on both sides of this, normally they wait for the investigation to take place, Right? Whether that's an investigation that's happening internally with the police department, whether the state police come in and take over the investigation, the attorney General's office comes in, who's ever going to be involved, and they wait until they have all the evidence before they make these decisions. And this, to me, given the circumstances here, seemed to be a very quick decision in terms of getting this officer charged and before a judge.
B
Correct. Not the norm. Like in the nypd, we have a whole force investigation unit that does their job. But this is not something that happens overnight. And it takes time. If they're even going to go that route. But to your point, again, this was what, a week or two later? Yeah, he's being arraigned. He's being arraigned. And he doesn't have to be arraigned because if the grand jury says no, true, Bill, no indictment, he's walking out the door. So you didn't have to do part one. Wait, do your investigation and if it rises that level through your investigation, camera work, witnesses, then go to grand jury if you need to. But this is, this is all political to me.
A
Yeah, I agree. And it's my understanding, you know, again, after doing these cases, a use of force situation is normally a pretty involved investigatory process. You want to talk about other officers that arrive there. You, you know as well as I do that when something like this takes place, every car in the police force ends up there and everyone's wearing a body camera. So the amount of evidence that's out there for them to sift through is probably pretty vast given not only the officers, but the path of travel for this car.
B
Absolutely. That video canvas is so key from start, even before the crime is committed. What was he doing? Was he stalking some other people? Then the act itself and then the chase itself to show the reckless behavior. And then to your point on the scene, not to mention body worn cameras, radio transmissions, people have cameras in their homes, their stores. So it's tedious. It's tedious. But you have to put a video compilation together with all the facts before you could present the case. And it wasn't done here.
A
Yeah, it really wasn't. And the last thing you know that I, I know from my work with police for many years and anybody who listens knows that my grandfather was a police officer and I've obviously been on both sides of these cases. The last thing police ever want to do is have to draw and fire that gun.
B
That's a. You're so right again. I'll say it again. This is not tv. It's the last resort. We don't want to be put in that position. And for a person who has been involved in three shootings in 32 years, I could speak to this. How fast it moves, how tunnel visioned you get your training kicks in like automatically you don't have time to think about is one of the scariest things you'll be involved in. But they took an oath to protect and serve and they ran to that woman's call for help. And they don't have a choice to run away. They got to run towards it.
A
Yeah, and they did. And you know, thankfully she wasn't, you know, hurt more than, than she was and it, it could have been much worse for her. And again, at the point that anybody's dealing with this situation, no one knows if he has a gun or a knife or a hammer or, or any weapons for that matter. And the police show up, right? They're on this scene, they're, they're giving him lawful orders after he's clearly committed crimes. He's not complying with those lawful orders. And then as you said, he uses this car as a weapon. We know that the officers have body cameras on, right? This officer is a 33 year old guy. He has zero complaints. He does not have a personnel file that would indicate that he's some hot headed guy that shouldn't be out there. He seems to have been an exemplary officer and he's out in this circumstance where he's, he's forced to make a choice. And the problem is, is that we need to have people who work for us as, as citizens and who work for these communities to back him up. We need people to say, look, this officer acted properly, this officer acted in a way that he had to to keep other people safe. What if this guy drives away and hits someone with the vehicle as he's driving, right? Like they, they have a duty to, to try to keep this community safe. And the officer makes this call and then the first thing they do is throw him under the bus, right?
B
The benefit of doubt goes to the police officer, not this person who's an arch criminal who committed this crime. Number two, you know, cops are simple people. They know they, they know what they joined, they know what they signed up for. But the minute they feel that they are not being supported by the community, by their local elected officials, by the mayor, and once that gets into the locker room, it's over. They will become so reactive, which is dangerous for the community and dangerous for themselves. Because if you're going to second guess yourself on this job, you're going to get yourself hurt. So this is a recipe for just not what should be happening in any community in this city right now. I mean, this country. Excuse me, should not be happening.
A
Well, it affects every one of us, right? It affects any person that ever is in a position where they have to pick up the phone and call the police. And it affects everybody else walking around on the street, streets that could be affected by those out there committing crimes. I want to ask you about the police officers training when it comes to these circumstances. And when you're taught that it's okay to actually fire deadly, deadly force, because I know that that's a big thing here. They're saying the officer's life wasn't in danger. And I don't know how you say that when someone is ramming their car not only into your police vehicle, but looks like it's coming in your direction. Which was quite similar to the Renee Good situation in Minneapolis where, you know, they're giving her orders, she's not paying attention to the orders, and then she decides to rev that engine and actually strikes the officer with her car. And it's at that, I think they
B
said, brushed up against them. I believe that was a nice terminology. He was hit by the car where I come from.
A
Right. Same. But, you know, so what. What is the. What is the training protocol in a situation like that? When is an officer allowed, you know, in the. In the police police handbook, for lack of a better term, to act in such a way?
B
Right. So I'll speak on behalf of New York City, but I'm sure it's kind of universal throughout the country. You know, you deadly physically use deadly physical force when someone's about to get killed or seriously injured and likely to die. So if someone was winding up with a baseball bat and you weren't looking, that you can get seriously injured and. Or likely to die. You have. You could use deadly physical force to stop that. A knife, a gun, a blunt object. It's all circumstantial. But in a car, a car is a weapon. That car hits you, and you just happen to fall backwards and hit your head and the car, you're dead. So that officer will have to explain his. What he felt, what he was seeing, why he did what he did based on the video cameras, based on statement, based on everything we spoke about before in totality. But that's really the standard.
A
And what does every prosecutor say in a DUI trial? Right. In every. Every case, they say that car could be used as a weapon. That's the argument they make every time. But now the car all of a sudden isn't a weapon when somebody's driving it. That we're putting in some protected class. That just doesn't make any sense to me.
B
Yeah. When you. When you place. When you put politics into the. As you well know better than I, when you put politics into the law, these are the kind of things that happen, and it's shameful.
A
His lawyer said, John, that he was arrested at home and not given an opportunity to surrender. I mean, I have people who have been charged with crimes multiple times. And as an attorney, if I call the police and say my client will turn himself in, they honor that every time. How do they not do it for a police officer?
B
It's all for political show. This is all the show. This is all from a blue city. They want you to show that they're, they're not going to take any perceived law breaking by anybody. He should have walked into that DA's office or to that courthouse with his union representation, with his family, and he would have been there. All political show. I'm sure it was filmed somewhere too. I wouldn't be even surprised at that. Also, if they have a leakage of film of him walking or getting pulled out of his house. Totally disgraceful.
A
Speaking of film, don't you think it's strange that they have not released body camera footage? If they really felt and have said that this officer's life wasn't in danger, don't you think that to back that statement up, it would make a lot of sense for, for the, you know, charging body to determine, for the state's attorney to say, you know what, I'm going to release this body camera so you can understand community why I made this decision? I think it's strange that they're not doing that.
B
Yeah, absolutely. In the NYPD, we had 30 days to release it. 30 plus days. But in situations like this, you have to get it out as soon as possible and let. And at shooting scenes, that Body one camera is downloaded to, let's say, a temporary headquarters truck type deal. When I used to go to shootings, I saw the video right away.
A
Yeah.
B
One of the things you do as a supervisor, you collect the Body one cameras and you get them downloaded right away before a press conference. You'll do that. So it should be out.
A
Yeah, it really should. And I just don't understand because I think that. And now we're, you know, we heard from Molly that obviously this is kind of coming down, no surprise, like everything these days, across political lines. But what do you think the ripple effect to the community is? And when I say that, I mean intended and unintended consequences. Because I think that a lot of people are not going to truly understand what, how this affects their lives until it does.
B
So let's go from top to bottom. As you know, as a prosecutor, once the police department is at odds with their local DA and this will cause a rift, there's no going back from this. That relationship has to be tight. It's not going to Be tight. And then they're going to blame the mayor for this, right? Obviously they're going to blame her. And then from the community point of view, I can tell you right now, the cops are saying in the locker room or in a bar or where they're hanging out, we're not doing anything anymore. It's not worth it. So we will just go from, I'll give you some business jargon, we'll go from radio run to radio run, one at a time. And do we got to do. Why are we going to put ourselves out there? And ultimately, who suffers from that? The community. People that need their cops to be proactive and be strong and stand tall. That's who's going to ultimately suffer from this. And ultimately the officer, God forbid, this does get indicted. Now you're up against a Boston jury. You know, this, this isn't over yet. It can get even worse for him and his family. This has rippling effects that are not good for anybody.
A
Yeah, I mean, I think that people will really be surprised, right, when they need the police. And either the police don't show or they show up and they're unwilling to act. And I think, you know, as we said earlier, police are put in situations where they're forced to act. They have. They took an oath. They have a duty. They're there to protect you. And they've always been willing to do that because they know they would be backed up. But once you remove that layer of security for officers, why would they. To your point about saying. They're just saying. They're saying, you know what? It's not worth it. It's not worth it because you can get charged with the crime, you can lose your insurance, you can lose your job, your family could lose you. Right. So there's all these things that are these humongous risks for not only small pay, small reward, but then to not have the people who put you there actually back you up.
B
Right. And this is why there's a shortage of people who want to become police officers in America.
A
I had Eugene Roy, former chief of detectives from Chicago, on with me the other day, and he was talking about the fact that police officers don't want to work in blue cities anymore. Are you seeing that in New York?
B
Right. You know, I'll put it. Let me give an example. When I, when I became a police officer in 1994, my academy class was. It was over 2, 000 cops in that class. Now, they struggle, struggle and probably take some people that wouldn't have passed 20 years ago, they struggle to get 600, they struggle to get 700, and that's the applicants. I had to wait. I had to wait four years to become a cop. Now you have to wait about four months. And I guess it's another conversation about what kind of person you're getting.
A
Well, and that's what I'm seeing. I mean, I'm seeing sometimes I'm wondering, you know, they're maybe not too far removed from some of the illegal activity that's happening on the streets. And then, oh, you better, you better
B
believe, you better believe that. I had to write a three page essay for a speeding summons. Now you got cops coming on board that they were a getaway driver, but they weren't at the robberies. You know, they didn't do the robberies today. Good.
A
Yeah, I'm starting to see a little bit of that. And I, I walked into a store one day in Chicago and there was, there had been a robbery at the store. You know, as we see these happening in, in stores all over now. And the, they found out that the security guard that was working in the store was actually in on it, and they coordinated it with the people that came in to do the robbery of the store. And you're thinking, God, this is really frightening that these are the people that were putting in stores to be security and to, you know, effectively try to keep things safe and secure. And then they're in on these situations where people come in with guns. I mean, we have to be careful about this too.
B
And it's a gen. It's generational also. It's generational.
A
Yeah, for sure. So how do you think the first few Mom, Dani months are going in New York? John,
B
for number one, we shouldn't be surprised at what he's doing. He. He demonstrated during the. No, I. Every time I do it. No, you shouldn't be surprised at what he's doing. It's been, it's been a disaster. He's lost his police department, whether he knows it or not. All his promises to take our money and your money and put it towards social services. Governor Hochul is not letting that happen right now. He wants to raise taxes. His wife had some horrendous, disgusting comments that, oh, she's just a citizen, so it doesn't count. It's been 85 days since he took over and it's a complete failure. And I don't see getting any better anytime soon.
A
I hope that becomes a blueprint for the rest of the world. When they think that electing people with these policies and platforms is a good idea. But what I will say is we thank our law enforcement, we support our law enforcement, and we would like to watch officials be elected who do the same. So, John, thank you for joining. We will be watching what happens with the officer in Boston and we will be praying for him and his family. I appreciate your time today.
B
Great to be in. Congratulations on the podcast. You're doing some great things out there.
A
Thank you for joining me for another episode of Crime and Justice. Don't forget to follow us wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe on YouTube. Also, we'd love to hear from you. Send us your thoughts, questions, comments.
Date: April 1, 2026
Host: Donna Rotunno (A)
Guests:
This episode examines the controversial manslaughter charge against Boston Police Officer Nicholas O’Malley, who fatally shot carjacking suspect Stevenson King. Host Donna Rotunno and guests break down the legal, procedural, and political angles of the case—questioning the speed of the prosecution, the charge itself, and wider implications for policing and public safety. The central debate: Was the use of deadly force justified, and is the car in this incident rightly considered a deadly weapon? The episode also critiques the political climate around policing and prosecutions in progressive cities.
[03:14] Speed of Charges: Rotunno and Line criticize prosecution for acting within “seven or eight days” without a grand jury:
[05:12] Political Fallout: Local Boston politicians are divided; some call for transparency and bodycam footage, others urge not to rush to judgment.
“Public reporting shows ... [King] had a long criminal history, multiple open cases, repeated violations, and was out on bail at the time of this incident. That matters for public safety.” (C, 06:03)
“As a city, we should not rush to judgment and immediately second guess Boston Police Officer Nick Ali ... The city should not penalize Police Officer Om Ali and his family.” (C, 06:37)
[22:54] Training & Thresholds:
[23:47] Prosecutors’ Stance:
“This is all for political show.” (B, 24:38)
[26:41] Chilling Impact on Community Policing:
[28:40] Recruitment Crisis:
[29:54] Concerns Over New Recruits:
“Bad guys throughout this country are now emboldened because the consequences are weak. And you’re backed up by Democratic left DAs that don’t want to punish you because it’s not your fault, it’s everybody else’s fault.” — John Chell (B), [00:09] & [09:58]
“A car is a deadly weapon. That car will kill you. Thousands of pounds coming at you.” — John Chell (B), [10:47]
“Sometimes police work gets messy. It gets messy. It’s a contact sport. Sometimes it just is.” — John Chell (B), [12:49]
“If you’re going to second guess yourself on this job, you’re going to get yourself hurt. So this is a recipe for just not what should be happening in any community in this city right now. I mean, this country.” — John Chell (B), [20:53]
“You use deadly physical force when someone’s about to get killed or seriously injured and likely to die. ... In a car, a car is a weapon.” — John Chell (B), [22:54]
“In every...case, they say that car could be used as a weapon. ... But now the car all of a sudden isn’t a weapon when somebody’s driving it. That...doesn’t make any sense to me.” — Donna Rotunno (A), [23:47]
This episode of Crime & Justice with Donna Rotunno offers a thorough, critical analysis of the Boston officer-involved shooting and its legal, procedural, and political ramifications. The conversation highlights intense public and political division, raises doubts about the prosecution’s impartiality and due process, and frames the case as emblematic of wider trends undermining proactive policing in major cities. Ultimately, the participants advocate for due process, greater community awareness, transparent leadership, and reaffirming support for law enforcement professionals.