Danroy Thomas Henry Jr.

People

Danroy Thomas Henry Jr.

Outcome

unknown

On October 17, 2010, Danroy "DJ" Henry Jr., a 20-year-old Black football player at Pace University, was shot and killed by Pleasantville, New York police officer Aaron Hess outside a bar where Henry had been celebrating his team's homecoming victory. A fight had broken out inside the bar, prompting police response, though Henry was not involved in the altercation. When officers ordered patrons to leave and Henry began pulling his car away from a fire lane, Officer Hess stepped in front of the vehicle. As the car moved forward, Hess ended up on the hood and fired through the windshield, killing Henry and wounding a passenger. The circumstances of the shooting remain disputed. Henry's passengers maintained they were doing nothing wrong when Hess ran in front of the car. Another officer at the scene, Ronald Beckley, contradicted Hess's account, stating that Hess was the "aggressor" and that Beckley had actually been firing at Hess, not at Henry, to stop what he perceived as an attack. Despite these conflicting accounts, a grand jury declined to indict Officer Hess in February 2011. In 2016, the Henry family accepted a $6 million partial settlement from the Village of Pleasantville and Officer Hess. Hess was never criminally charged and retired from the Pleasantville police department with his pension. The case was reopened for review by New York state investigators in 2020 following renewed national attention on police killings of Black Americans, but in 2023, the Westchester District Attorney announced no charges would be submitted to a grand jury.