Aaron Hess, Officer Who Killed Danroy Henry, Honored

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — A police union has given its Officer of the Year award to the policeman who shot and killed a college football player during a disturbance in the New York City suburbs.

Parents of the student, 20-year-old Danroy Henry Jr., of Easton, Mass., called the award insensitive and arrogant.

"We simply asked for truth and honesty, and we've gotten arrogance," said Danroy Henry Sr. "Some people see themselves above the law and above simple human dignity."

The student's mother, Angella Henry, said: "Now everyone else is getting to see the kind of inhumane treatment we've gotten."

The Police Benevolent Association of the Pleasantville Police Department said Wednesday it honored Officer Aaron Hess for his dignity and professionalism since the October shooting and throughout his career.

Hess fired at Henry's car as Henry drove away from a disturbance that spilled out of a bar in Thornwood, just north of New York City, after Pace University's homecoming game. Hess was cleared of criminal wrongdoing by a Westchester County grand jury in February.

Autopsy results found Henry was above the legal limit for alcohol, but his family says he wasn't drunk.

Hess, who suffered leg injuries, said he shot at Henry after Henry's car hit him. Some witnesses disputed that.

The Henry family is seeking federal intervention, and the Department of Justice has said it will review the evidence to determine whether there were any civil rights crimes.

The Henrys are planning a $120 million lawsuit against Pleasantville and Mount Pleasant.

The PBA said the award wasn't meant to offend the Henry family.

But family lawyer Michael Sussman said, "They're offended."

Comments

[DeuceDomino]

08:45 AM on 04/23/2011

I fully expect that if I am drunk and try to run over a cop, he or she will shoot me. In fact, I would be kind of disappointed if he/she did not.

[MrTown3]

06:09 PM on 04/17/2011

this is why I believe in "vigilante" justice....if they come to their senses about this system that police officer's days should be numbered..

[Erewhon7]

01:29 AM on 04/16/2011

“"The Westcheste­r medical examiner’s office 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."
http://www­.nytimes.c­om/2010/12­/06/nyregi­on/06pace.­html?_r=2&­pagewanted­=3

[Konrad Klean]

02:11 PM on 04/16/2011

The amount of alcohol in his system is irrelevant to the handling of the incident. Play the traffic cam tapes, or perform an outside investigation into the night's events.

[Erewhon7]

01:09 AM on 04/17/2011

The fact that the perp was inebriated is extremely relevant to his unruly actions whcih included severely injuring a police officers and refusing to stop when an injured officer in clinging to your windshield wiper.
A panicked d r0nk would do that, whereas a person in charge of his facilities may have stopped.

[Konrad Klean]

09:58 PM on 04/15/2011

Reality check and diplomacy check. They probably wanted to wait until after the case is put through internal investigations to make any public statements on the officer. Because right now, if it should ever come to it, they just tainted the jury.

Some thoughts. I am waiting to see the recording of the incident, which has failed to surface. That being said I strongly doubt the verity of the police story.

[NicholasGrillo]

01:57 PM on 04/15/2011

if i hit a cop in my car id not be surprised to be shot at, now, if i was a minor, plastered, had the cops called on me, ran into the cop with my car, then tried to drive off. i would expect to be shot.

[Erewhon7]

02:29 PM on 04/15/2011

exactly. faved.

[NicholasGrillo]

05:27 PM on 04/15/2011

whos to say the cop lied? if the cop was proven innocent in a court, its safe to say hes probably innocent. could he have used more discretion and maybe shot out a tire? yes. but honestly if i carried a gun, and someone tried to hit me, id shoot. end of story. IMO this is darwin at work. i know is i was wasted and a cop was after me, i wouldnt run, you get a dui, an overnight in jail, a fine, big deal. it sucks, i know lots of people that have them, its an inconvenience at worst. nothing worth risking your life over. and to be fair, if the kid was guilty of nothing he wouldnt have run. now im not saying he deserved to die. but proper judgment would have guaranteed his life is safe.

[Konrad Klean]

11:13 PM on 04/15/2011

How you, with that attitude, get to moderate others' posts is beyond me.

[CashCrop101]

01:41 PM on 04/15/2011

Hess was cleared of criminal wrongdoing by a Westchester County grand jury in February.

So how is this a story?.

[Angelus2007]

03:20 PM on 04/15/2011

It gives the "all cops are evil" crowd something to read and get angry at home about.

[Dan Rosenthal]

05:03 PM on 04/16/2011

Fav'd and fan'd.

[Six Gator]

09:26 AM on 04/15/2011

there are some 120million reason to be "offended"...

[Joseph Schmoe]

07:58 AM on 04/15/2011

I have yet to see any family member of the victim of any shooting go on TV news to say, "Yep. He was a bad apple and he had this coming. I'm suprised it took this long."
So I really put no stock in either the young man's family's comments nor the police officer's union's awards.
I'll let the courts--evidence, witnesses, the law--sort this one out. Thanks.

[Angelus2007]

03:22 PM on 04/15/2011

So true.

[bizchickblogs]

02:28 AM on 04/18/2011

Good points, Joseph.

[Yank in France]

07:00 AM on 04/15/2011

After living in Europe for the better part of two decades, this story recalls an incident from my early youth.

My friends and I decided to play hookey form school one day and the police showed up at my (parents') house. Naturally, all my friends scattered and the police came running after them. They managed to catch some of them.

The young police officers then scolded those they captured by warning them that they should never run from a police officer because they could have taken them for burglars and thus SHOT THEM DEAD.

As a young whippersnapper, it never occurred to me that the police would shoot someone on such a willy-nilly basis, but I soon learned that that was standard practice in my country.

When I first came to France, I thought the police were too lenient, but, despite all the highly publicized problems with some Arab youth (not all, and NOT most) here, the level of violence is much, much lower in France.

For example, the French are scandalized that there are 64,000 people in French prisons today. If we were to compare that to the United States and muliply by FIVE (US has FIVE times the population), that would make 320,000 prisoners in America.

Unfortunately, the number of prisoners in America is several times that figure: I will let someone else tell us what is the combined total of federal and state prisoners...

My point is that violence begets violence. Since the United States is by far and away the most violent country in the Western world and probably more violent than 90% of dirt poor countries, maybe it is time for America to change it tack toward the use of near random violence by the police and the courts?

[gransview]

08:38 AM on 04/15/2011

merci

[Erewhon7]

12:07 PM on 04/15/2011

U.S. is a violent society, from top to bottom. Americans are steeped in a culture of violence from an early age.
To blame thing on the police and courts(?!) is irrational and indicative of inability to produce coherent analysis of the situation.

[Yank in France]

12:30 PM on 04/15/2011

Hi Erewhon,

I am NOT blaming the violence problem on the police and courts, you are quite right that the problem is far more complex than that.

Since you do not know me, other than a couple very brief comments here, let me add that I generally do not attack the police or courts willy-nilly. I also am NOT attacking the police officer named in this article. I only used the story as a jump-off point to tell my own experiences and the development of my thinking on the matter.

That said, I have indeed witnessed first hand real police violence mixed with real sadism. I have also personally suffered at the hands of the courts under conditions that made it impossible for me to defend myself.

So while I am generally sympathetic to the police, I am bitter toward callous prosecutors and judges.

Now, returning to your point, I think America needs to think of ways to reduce the violence in our culture. I know that is a very difficult problem, but since it seems to have gotten much worse over the years, there is no reason why it can't get better!

Have a good day.

[Dan Rosenthal]

05:04 PM on 04/16/2011

Stereotypical? "Americans are violent". (Citation needed).

[mamacat]

05:14 AM on 04/15/2011

Back in the 60s, where I was, an officer killed in cold blood one of the demonstrators who had just chased away some others who were trying to start a riot. There was no camera crew, and the only newspaper in town is Republican, so the story got buried for a couple of years. I guess we were fortunate that the officer was eventually encouraged to leave the force. There was no way he was ever going to be prosecuted for murder.

[Erewhon7]

12:10 PM on 04/15/2011

There is no relationship between whatever tale you spinning and this story about a Officer Hess being seriously injured by a hit-an-run drunk driver.

[helgathewitch]

09:33 PM on 04/15/2011

The cop was not seriously injured. This kid was not in the bar with his friends he came to pick them up and was waiting outside. The cop went in front of the car to try to stop it

[UmDamayor]

03:22 AM on 04/15/2011

Dam n! He was the only officer up for this reward? There's always more to know. The stories differ from both sides, but cops are known for being overzealous at times. What would be the witness' motivation in all of this?

[Six Gator]

09:38 AM on 04/15/2011

drunk kids (any, but particularly young kids) are also known to be "overzealous"....and perhaps had a huge influence in what happened.
How many people, after having been run into by a fleeing car, might not think that the driver is trying to kill them...I wasn't there either...but if some one shot my friend, I might be inclined to "say" what I thought would help burn the dude...I get that.
Its horrible that a young man paid a high price that night (or in any case like this).....and maybe the award could have been private or not done this year..???

[Sam Salinitis]

03:04 AM on 04/15/2011

join the oath keepers. end this tyranny. take our country back!

[Six Gator]

11:54 AM on 04/15/2011

trickle up!....start with respecting the law. Instead of flight, stay when the authority figure says to...
If you're innocent, why would you 'run" in the first place....because of something bad happening? -well,...something bad happened.

[DesertDavey]

02:02 PM on 04/22/2011

What "tyranny"? Do you know what that word means?

[Erewhon7]

02:38 AM on 04/15/2011

"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."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/06/nyregion/06pace.html?_r=2&pagewanted=3

Yeah, drunk teens with a sports scholarship to protect are REAL good at rational decisions.

[Yank in France]

07:02 AM on 04/15/2011

So what are you saying, the kid drank too much so KILL the little bugger?!

[Erewhon7]

10:00 AM on 04/15/2011

Keeping with form-- an ignorant. comment.
Demonstrably you don't posses enough intellectual capacity to figure out "what I am saying."

[Chi--townfool]

12:10 PM on 04/15/2011

He's saying yes

[Erewhon7]

02:34 AM on 04/15/2011

Here's an advice to all of you spouting hallucinatory nonsense-- if you speed away from a scene and you're inebriated and you hit a police officer who ends up injured on your hood----- STOP!!!

[Martin E Collins Jr]

01:41 AM on 04/15/2011

This sounds like a COP trying to be a superhero... Why in HELL would you jump on the hood of this car and shoot at Point Blank rANGE UNBELIEVABLE!!!

[Erewhon7]

02:32 AM on 04/15/2011

This is a border-line idjiotic comment.
When have you ever heard of cops purposefully jumping into the path of a speeding car. And getting a severely dislocated knee cap that ended up in officer Hess' thigh... THIGH!!!

This is a cartoonish nonsense only tribally preoccupied can come up with due to congenital inability to admit the truth which challenges their biases.

[helgathewitch]

09:51 PM on 04/15/2011

That is pretty much what he did. The story was covered extensively here and that is what happened. Then when the kid didn't stop he shot the kid through the windshield

[Konrad Klean]

02:17 PM on 04/16/2011

Please re-type that in English. Many of us do not speak retardese competently enough to translate your statements back into the common tongue.