Release the video, now

After the first-ever police-involved shooting caught on NYPD body cameras, Commissioner Jimmy O’Neill is deferring to the Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark — and preventing the public from seeing footage of what happened. He ought to be consulting with someone named Jimmy O’Neill instead.

A year ago, as Charlotte, N.C., raged with protests over a police killing, and as the chief there refused to release dashcam footage of the incident, O’Neill sounded like he believed in sunshine.

“I think it’s very important to be as transparent as possible if that means releasing the video so people can see what actually happened,” he said.

Last Wednesday, those principled words were put to the test. Two cops shot and killed Miguel Antonio Richards, and it was all captured by body cameras worn by four officers on the scene.

Richards was reportedly brandishing a knife in one hand, with the other hand “concealed behind his back,” said the NYPD’s chief of department.

Those apparently indisputable facts came from body-cam footage that at this rate, no one in the public is going to get to see for days, weeks or more.

That’s because the Bronx DA declares itself concerned that “Releasing videos to the public during the early stages of an investigation may . . . compromise the integrity of the investigation.”

And NYPD brass, while claiming their commissioner would release the video if it were up to him, says no can do as long as the DA has worries.

But it is up to him, and he’s refusing. He could at least be transparent about his stark reversal.