What the body cams show

The video view of NYPD officers confronting and then fatally shooting Miguel Richards in the Bronx last week shows policing at its most harrowing and heartbreaking. Later than he should have, Police Commissioner James O’Neill aired the footage for all to see on Thursday — the first time New York has been able to witness a fatal police shooting as captured by officers’ body cams, as worn by four who responded to a call to Richards’ room by his landlord.

So it must go — because the policed public needs to see for itself what transpired, as in Charlotte, as in Baton Rouge, as in Milwaukee. There is no going back to a time when cops committed violence without the act seeing daylight.

Delay aside, O’Neill did the rest right. His team compiled the four camera angles into the clearest view possible of the scene, with audio throughout, and slow motion at the fateful moment.

In the footage, Officer Mark Fleming, pointing a pistol, pleads with Richards to first put down the knife in his left hand, and then to drop what appeared to be a gun in his right — demanding to know whether it was toy or real.

Cops’ verbal threats escalate over the course of a patient but tense 15 minutes, culminating in last-ditch attempts at persuasion: “This is not going to end well for you if you don’t put that down.” And: “Do you want to die?”

A backup officer arrives with a Taser and shoots it at Richards a split second after he raises the toy pistol. A beat later, two officers open fire, shooting 16 rounds. It is on this moment questions must focus. No view of the video shows exactly what it was that Richards was doing, if anything, to invite a hail of bullets when a Taser had already been fired and specially trained Emergency Service Unit officers waited downstairs.

Official inquiries, by the NYPD and the Bronx DA, must continue, strengthened by the clear view necessary to allow justice to be done.