Confusion Follows Pace Football Player’s Shooting by Police - NYTimes.comAfter Police Shots, Grief and Conflicting Stories
Stephan Savoia/Associated Press
The family of Danroy Henry Jr., a Pace University football player, at his memorial service Oct. 29.
By SERGE F. KOVALESKI and TRYMAINE LEE
Published: December 5, 2010
RECOMMEND
TWITTER
COMMENTS (141)
SIGN IN TO E-MAIL
PRINT
SINGLE PAGE
REPRINTS
SHARE
The 33-year-old police officer, Aaron Hess, was a former Marine who for seven years had served on the tiny police force in Pleasantville, N.Y., the village where he had grown up. He had never fired his gun at anyone in the line of duty.
Multimedia
Video Feature
At the Scene of Danroy Henry Jr.’s Shooting
Enlarge This Image
Marcus Yam for The New York Times
During a rally around the Westchester County district attorney’s office in November, Joseph Garcia, a Pace University football player, wore items remembering his teammate Danroy Henry Jr., who was fatally shot by a police officer outside a Thornwood, N.Y., bar on Oct. 17.
Readers' Comments
Readers shared their thoughts on this article.
Read All Comments (141) »
Brandon Cox, 20, was a college running back sitting next to his best friend from Easton, Mass., Danroy Henry Jr., in a car outside a Westchester County bar. Mr. Henry, known as D. J., was a football player, too, with no record of trouble, whose arms, which held the car’s steering wheel, were tattooed with the words “Family First.”
During 15 or so seconds early on the morning of Oct. 17, Officer Hess fired four rounds, his lawyer said, into the Nissan Altima with Mr. Cox and Mr. Henry inside, killing Mr. Henry, wounding Mr. Cox and igniting a mix of confusion and anger.
Officer Hess has told his lawyer that the shooting was justified and that the events began when he heard another officer yell for Mr. Henry to stop his car as he abruptly drove off from near the bar, Finnegan’s Grill in Thornwood.
Mr. Cox, who had not spoken publicly about the specifics of the shooting, said in a recent interview that he did not hear or see anyone instruct Mr. Henry to stop his car. He said that Officer Hess had suddenly stepped out from between two parked police cruisers with his firearm already drawn and grasped in both hands.
“In the end, I was in utter disbelief,” Mr. Cox said. “I couldn’t believe that my best friend was gone.”
For the last seven weeks, the office of the Westchester district attorney — working with the State Police and the Mount Pleasant Police Department — has been overseeing the investigation of the deadly shooting. About 250 witnesses have been interviewed, an autopsy report has been filed and ballistics tests have been conducted. But the investigators have declined to release their findings, and Officer Hess has chosen not to submit to questioning by them. A grand jury is expected to hear evidence in the case next month.
Accounts provided by Officer Hess’s lawyer, Mr. Cox, a third person who was in Mr. Henry’s car at the time of the shooting and more than a dozen other witnesses, lawyers and law enforcement officials have produced the first detailed conflicting narratives of what took place that morning during homecoming weekend for Pace University’s Westchester campus.
An autopsy report from the medical examiner’s office released last week by Mr. Henry’s family showed that Mr. Henry was legally drunk at the time of the shooting and that he was struck by two bullets. His cause of death was listed as bullet wounds “involving heart and lungs.”
But the case’s central consideration remains unresolved:
Was Officer Hess struck by the car before he opened fire, and did he have reason to believe his life was in danger? If so, the shooting — the first in about 30 years for any officer in the Pleasantville Police Department — may have fallen within state law and departmental guidelines covering the use of deadly force.
If not, why did the officer choose not to get out of the car’s way and instead fire at the vehicle, which carried three college students who were of no demonstrated threat to anyone?
Mr. Henry, 20, and his two friends in the Nissan that morning were black. Officer Hess and another officer who later fired his gun are white. The Henry family has asked the Justice Department for a federal investigation into the shooting, saying that though it is unclear whether race was an issue, the possibility needs to be explored and resolved. The family has also contended that the investigation has been compromised by inherent conflicts and the disclosure of confidential information. For its part, the Justice Department said it would monitor the local investigation.
Dancing, Then Commotion
It was late Saturday night of homecoming weekend, and Finnegan’s, about two miles from the university’s Pleasantville campus, was crowded. Members of Pace University’s football team were also inside, trying to shake off a 27-0 loss to Stonehill College of Easton, Mass.
Mr. Henry was a cornerback for Pace; Mr. Cox was a running back for Stonehill. A year apart in school, they had grown up together in Massachusetts.
“We were so close that at the end of my senior year in high school, we went and both got baptized together,” Mr. Cox said.
1 2 3 4 NEXT PAGE »
Alain Delaquérière, Nate Schweber and Jack Styczynski contributed reporting.
Page break by AutoPager. Page( 2 ).
(Page 2 of 4)
At Finnegan’s, the two had been mingling and dancing with others for more than 90 minutes when the lights went on and the music fell silent. There was an announcement that everybody had to leave and that the police were on the way, several patrons recalled.
Chief Louis Alagno of the Mount Pleasant Police Department said that at 1:19 a.m. that Sunday, the owner of Finnegan’s called to report a disturbance. By the time a half-dozen officers responded, an agitated and larger-than-normal crowd of more than 100 people stirred outside the bar.
One of those officers, Ronald Gagnon of the Mount Pleasant Police Department, noticed a Nissan Altima in the fire lane not far from the commotion. Seated inside the car were Mr. Henry, Mr. Cox and Desmond Hinds, 21, a wide receiver on the Pace football team. They were waiting for two others riding with them.
Chief Alagno said the officer pulled up behind the Nissan in his car and sounded an electronic air horn twice to get Mr. Henry to move his car. The vehicle did not budge. So, Officer Gagnon got out and knocked on Mr. Henry’s window, presumably to talk with him and to tell him to park in a legal spot, Chief Alagno said.
But Mr. Henry’s car, which has tinted windows, suddenly started to pull away, prompting Officer Gagnon to call out for it to stop, Chief Alagno said.
Standing roughly 50 feet ahead of Mr. Henry’s parked car was Officer Hess, an officer with the Pleasantville Police Department who had arrived at Finnegan’s minutes earlier with his police dog, a German shepherd named Roxx. Officer Hess had lowered one of his car windows so that some in the crowd would have noticed the dog and calmed down.
Before working for his hometown police force as one of its 21 officers, Officer Hess had been a patrolman with the New York Police Department, working in northern Manhattan.
But the tug of serving the community where he had been raised brought him back to Pleasantville.
He had fond memories of the village, where he was captain of the high school football team.
After graduating from high school in 1995, Mr. Hess joined the Marines. During his four years of service, he was a crew chief of an amphibious assault unit in the Middle East.
As he was assessing the situation outside Finnegan’s, Officer Hess heard the officer yelling out for Mr. Henry’s car to stop, according to an account given by his lawyer, John K. Grant. Officer Hess, who had been holding a flashlight, then stepped into the road and raised his left hand to signal to the driver to halt. But instead of slowing down, Mr. Grant said, the car was gaining speed.
For whatever reason, Officer Hess felt he could not get out of the way in time and reached for his Glock .40-caliber firearm.
“Either right before or right at the point of impact, he draws the gun and lands on the hood with it out as the car accelerates again and swerves,” Mr. Grant said. “He then starts firing.”
Mr. Grant said the officer was not firing indiscriminately, but at the driver.
“Officer Hess was holding on with one hand around the window wipers and fearing for his life,” he said. “His knee cap was already five inches up into his thigh from the impact.”
Officer Carl Castagna of the Mount Pleasant Police Department, who had been standing near Officer Hess, has told investigators that he saw Officer Hess step out and try to motion for the car to stop. He added that Officer Hess had not drawn his gun at that point and had been holding a flashlight in his left hand. Officer Castagna said he had not seen what Officer Hess did once he was on the hood.
Standing farther down the road, another Mount Pleasant officer, Ronald Beckley, 54, was startled by the gunfire and drew his weapon, according to a person who had been told of his account. Officer Beckley, a 30-year veteran of the force, had never shot at anyone in the line of duty.
Officer Beckley said that he had seen that the Nissan had been veering to the left and heading for him and a cruiser he was standing next to.
« PREVIOUS PAGE 1 2 3 4 NEXT PAGE »
Alain Delaquérière, Nate Schweber and Jack Styczynski contributed reporting.
Page break by AutoPager. Page( 3 ).
(Page 3 of 4)
Officer Beckley jumped out of the way as Mr. Henry’s car crashed into the cruiser. Officer Beckley’s gun discharged, apparently putting a bullet into the hood of the Nissan, the person, who requested anonymity because of the continuing investigation, said. The round did not strike Officer Hess, who was thrown from the hood on impact.
‘Family First’
Danroy Henry Jr. grew up in Massachusetts. For the last 10 years, his family has lived in Easton, a bedroom community outside Boston.
Danroy Henry Sr. is chief human resources officer at Bright Horizons Family Solutions, which provides employer-sponsored child care and early education programs for corporations, hospitals, universities and government agencies. Angella Henry, D. J.’s mother, works in speech pathology.
The Henry home was the hub of activity for D. J. and his friends.
D. J. had dreamed of perhaps playing for the New England Patriots, but he had become more realistic. He was a business major at Pace and was thinking about a career in sports management.
After Stonehill’s victory that Saturday, the Henry and Cox families had dinner together at Lucio’s Pizzeria in Pleasantville before Mr. Henry and Mr. Cox headed back to the campus town house where Mr. Henry lived to shower and dress for a night out.
Someone bought a bottle of vodka. Some modest drinks were had, recalled Mr. Cox, who said that he does not consume alcohol. Eventually, they were off to Finnegan’s.
Mr. Cox said that he was with Mr. Henry all night, and that he did not see him drink anything more than the one vodka drink at the town house — a cup filled a quarter of the way with vodka and mixed with orange soda. At Finnegan’s, a female Pace student kept offering Mr. Henry a sip of her drink, but he refused, telling her that he had to drive, Mr. Cox said.
The Westchester medical examiner’s office, however, found that Mr. Henry’s blood-alcohol level was 0.13 percent, according to the autopsy report. Typically, that would mean a person of his size would have had about half a dozen drinks and been in some way impaired. Mr. Cox, though, insisted that Mr. Henry had seemed fine and alert.
Once the lights went on at the bar, Mr. Henry and Mr. Cox walked to Mr. Henry’s car, and Mr. Henry drove it around to the fire lane in front of a store next to Finnegan’s.
After Mr. Hinds joined them, the three spent 10 minutes or so messaging on their phones and waiting for two others. A CD was playing on the car stereo, but the volume was turned down so low that the music was barely audible, Mr. Cox recalled.
“The next thing we hear is a loud knock on the driver’s window, and it sounded like metal against glass, like a flashlight,” Mr. Cox said. “We were startled by it because it was loud and unexpected. And then he knocks again a few seconds later. We look up and we see the officer.”
Mr. Cox added that he never saw a police cruiser behind Mr. Henry’s car and did not hear an air horn go off. Mr. Cox said that the officer seemed to be signaling with his hand for them to move forward.
Mr. Henry shifted the car into gear and pulled out of the fire lane, moving at “regular parking lot speed,” Mr. Cox said. There were three police cars parked in a row to their left.
“As we come out of the curve and head to the straightaway, an officer came out from in between two cruisers with his gun drawn and pointed at us,” he recalled.
Mr. Cox said that as the car slowed slightly, he heard a gunshot and the sound of breaking glass. He said that the officer never signaled for the car to stop before firing. Mr. Cox said he put his head down and leaned into his door to try to avoid being hit.
“After the first shot sounds, I feel the car hit something, but I couldn’t see what it had struck at that moment,” he said. “But then, out of my left eye, I could see him on the hood, and he was firing. I saw the gun up to the windshield.”
At one point, Mr. Cox, who is being represented by Charles J. Ogletree Jr., said he felt a bullet strike him in his left arm.
« PREVIOUS PAGE 1 2 3 4 NEXT PAGE »
Alain Delaquérière, Nate Schweber and Jack Styczynski contributed reporting.
Page break by AutoPager. Page( 4 ).
(Page 4 of 4)
Mr. Hinds, who was in the back seat, said on Friday that from his vantage point, he had seen the officer jump “in front of the car at the last minute.” Once the officer was on the hood, Mr. Hinds recalled, three bullets came through the windshield.
George Prepis, 20, a former Pace student who had attended homecoming and said that he had witnessed the shooting, said in an interview that it had appeared Officer Hess already had his gun in hand and then had thrown himself onto the hood.
Mr. Prepis said that as the Nissan moved out of the fire lane, he had seen the officer standing near the middle of the road, to the side of the car’s path, with a gun in his right hand down by his leg. He said that the officer was signaling with his left arm for Mr. Henry to stop.
“He then stepped in front of the car and jumped on the hood and started shooting,” Mr. Prepis said. “It was not like he got hit.”
After the Nissan stopped, Mr. Cox remembered, Mr. Henry had said: “They shot me. They shot me. I can’t believe they shot me.”
Mr. Cox stumbled out of the car and saw police officers on Mr. Henry’s side of the car. Mr. Cox then noticed a police officer walking toward him with a gun in his hand.
“He asked me if I was all right and had I been hit. I said, ‘In my arm,’ ” he recalled. “As soon as I said I had been in the car, the officer pointed at me with his gun and said, ‘Get down,’ and I did so. And then he cuffed me.”
The officer then put Mr. Cox in a police car in front of Mr. Henry, who was lying face-down in handcuffs and taking short breaths.
“In the ambulance, the police handcuffed me again,” Mr. Cox said. “Nobody ever said that I was under arrest, and nobody ever read me my rights.”
Mr. Cox said that he eventually rode in the ambulance with Officer Gagnon, the officer who had knocked on the window of Mr. Henry’s car. Officer Gagnon said he had tapped on the window in an effort to tell Mr. Henry to get the car to move.
Mr. Prepis said that when the police handcuffed Mr. Henry, one officer had his knee on Mr. Henry’s neck and a gun in hand while yelling at onlookers to stand back. Another officer, he said, was pressing his knee into Mr. Henry’s back.
Some witnesses have said that the police had not tried to save Mr. Henry’s life quickly enough.
“There was a slight delay because I don’t think that the officers realized Mr. Henry’s condition right away,” Chief Alagno acknowledged. “I believe that there was not a lot of blood.”
« PREVIOUS PAGE 1 2 3 4
Alain Delaquérière, Nate Schweber and Jack Styczynski contributed reporting.
A version of this article appeared in print on December 6, 2010, on page
