Crime & Safety
DJ Henry's Family Awarded $6M After Police Shooting
Danroy Henry, a Pace University football player from Easton, was shot and killed by a police officer outside a New York bar in 2010.
With reporting by Lanning Taliaferro (Patch Staff)
EASTON, MA — The family of DJ Henry, the Pace University football player shot and killed by a police officer in New York in 2010, accepted a $6 million settlement.
An attorney representing Henry's parents, Danroy and Angella, of Easton, announced the agreement Monday.
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“No monetary settlement could ever replace the deep loss of their son DJ,” attorney Michael Sussman, said in a statement.
The settlement was reached with the village of Pleasantville and former Officer Aaron Hess.
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Henry was killed in the early morning hours of Oct. 18, 2010. Henry, who had played earlier for Pace University’s football team that Homecoming Day, was shot by an off-duty Pleasantville policeman who saw a fracas outside a bar as he was passing by and stayed as Mount Pleasant officers responded.
Henry was parked in a fire lane when a police officer knocked on the driver’s-side window. He moved away believing the officer was instructing him to.
Henry was shot through his windshield. The officer who shot him, Aaron Hess, said Henry was driving toward him, hit him, and wouldn’t stop. Another officer, Ronald Beckley of the Mount Pleasant police force, also fired. But Beckley said in a deposition that he was firing at the person on the hood, not knowing it was Hess and believing it was “the aggressor.” Witnesses at the scene begged police and emergency responders to treat Henry as he lay bleeding out—but Hess said he had suffered a leg injury and he was treated first.
Federal and state authorities investigated the case but decided not to pursue charges against Hess.
The case drew comparisons to the police shooting of Michael Brown in Missouri.
Henry was 20 years old. He grew up in Easton. His parents created DJ Henry Dream Fund in his honor.
The Death of DJ Henry
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