Group wants cop cam vid in Bx. killing

A civil rights group is suing the NYPD for the complete body cam footage that captured the fatal shooting of a mentally ill Bronx man during a psychotic episode.

After failing to get the footage through the Freedom of Information law, the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest filed a lawsuit compelling the NYPD to produce all the body camera footage of the fatal Sept. 6 clash with Miquel Richards.

Cops shot Richards 16 times following a 15-minute standoff in an Edenwald apartment in the Bronx.

Richards refused to drop a knife he was carrying. Cops opened fire after Richards, according to police, raised what turned out to be a toy gun.

Two weeks later, the poreleased lice the body camfootage era for the Richards shooting, which NYLPI claims was heavily edited.

The police also failed to produce body camera footage from other officers at the scene, the group said.

“The tally of police shootings of individuals with mental illness in New York City — 10 in the last two years alone — is unconscionable,” said Ruth Lowenkron, director of the Disability Justice Program at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest.

During the video that was released, cops could be heard ordering Richards to drop his weapon. “You're about a second from getting shot,” one cop is heard saying. “Do you want to die?”

Richards' death was the first fatal police shooting since the NYPD's court-ordered body camera pilot program began five months earlier.

The NYLPI said it had sent multiple FOIL requests for the footage and was turned down each time.

The lawfirm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP and its in-house counsel Stuart Parker — a former NYPD officer — filed the lawsuit on the group's behalf.

The NYPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.