48 Hours - Defending DJ

Episode Date: December 2, 2018

"48 Hours" goes inside a family’s mission to restore their son’s reputation seven years after he was fatally shot by a police officer. CBS News special correspondent James Brown reports.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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and even your overall well-being. And you can enjoy Audible anytime, while doing household chores, exercising, commuting, you name it. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert

to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military. And when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. That day was full of laughs. We got there, the energy was great, my whole family was there. I think I made all the games and homecoming we were all we were all there we had driven up and we were there to see the game DJ he was my shadow he and I were together all the time my family's really close really close always been

really close we are like a our own little universe the five of us. Dad called him DJ. Mom would call him Danny. Danny, always. He was the surrogate dad to his siblings. They looked up to him. I struggled with math as a high school student, and he'd be the first one to sit down and be like, okay, well, let's figure it out. He, um...

was... Oh oh my gosh, a joy, a Pied Piper in the neighborhood. All of the kids loved him. The biggest smile you've ever seen and a very gentle spirit. We had driven up there the same day, watched the game, hung out, and then drove gentle spirit. We had driven up there the same day, watched the game, hung out, and then drove back home. So very early in the morning, I was startled awake, and I said to Angela, someone is at the door. It was two police officers. They said, Mr. Henry, your son has been in an accident. He handed me a slip

of paper and said, you need to call this number. The nurse on the phone said, are you Mrs. Henry? I said, yes. I heard my son was in an accident. And I kept saying, well, what happened? What happened? And she said, he was shot. And I said, who would shoot him? I can't understand who would shoot him. The nurse gave the phone to one of the attending physicians who got on the phone and said he died. I remember just falling to my knees. DJ Henry was a 20-year-old Pace University junior back in October of 2010 when he was fatally shot in his car.

I heard what sounded like firefighters and I heard a car screech. I didn't think anything of it. Homecoming, someone's probably had fireworks. Last thing I thought about was what ended up being the case. Everybody wasn't buying the original story. It immediately didn't fit together, so I had suspicions from day one. People believed fervently that they knew what happened. And whenever you hear of a case like this, you can't believe first impressions. Something really significant happened in this car. Do you keep evidence from every case that you handle? This was an unusual situation. I needed it to be here so perhaps a day like today would come when we

could tell the story of what really happened here. I never thought in a million years it would turn out the way it did. We don't need some version of the story that protects one side or the other. Our whole goal was to just get the truth. It was in the early morning of October 17, 2010. It was early. It was after the midnight hour. The serenity of Dan and Angela Henry's home in Easton, Massachusetts, was shattered with the unfathomable news that their eldest son, DJ, had been shot to death. And I think they heard me scream that he died and came back down. And I just remember laying on the floor crying.

And Kyle came over and stood over me. And he just grabbed my shoulders and he said, Mom, look at me. It's going to be okay. Their younger son, Kyle. We just rushed out of the house. I don't even remember if we locked anything up. I didn't even have shoes on. The drive from Easton to the Westchester County Medical Center in New York was over three hours. We didn't want him there by himself, and so we prayed all the way.

What was it like when you got to the hospital? As soon as we saw him, we all just screamed and cried. Dan grabbed him and just held him and talked to him, prayed with him, told him that we loved him. To see your brother, the person you grew up with my whole life, has been with him. And then you see this person lifeless, and it was the most horrifying thing I've ever seen in my life. He had scrapes and scratches and cuts that he didn't have.

I just couldn't believe it. The Henry's daughter, Amber, got to the hospital later. So my mom came out of the doors. She said, I need to come take you to say goodbye. It was definitely a moment I knew right there that my life was going to change. The life the Henry's built was an American dream. Dan, an Ivy League graduate, enjoyed a successful career as a human resources executive. His wife Angela made the choice to stay home with their three children.

We knew right away that we wanted to work as hard as we could to provide for our children a stable home, two parents. Amber, a recent college graduate, is the youngest. We are so full of love and we just want the best for each and every one of us. Kyle, an independent music artist, is in the middle. Always had each other's backs, always been very strong in each other's lives. In the cafeteria right now. The cafeteria. Always had each other's backs. Always been very strong in each other's lives. In the cafeteria right now. The cafeteria. Danny, a handsome student athlete, was the oldest.

When he played sports, there was inevitably another Dan or Danny. And so Dan started calling him DJ. DJ embraced his family so much that it inspired him to get a tattoo. His first tattoo was family first. I looked down and saw what he did and said, oh, that was well played. The kid DJ, he's an amazing kid. He wasn't perfect, but man, was he a good guy with immense promise. So what happened? How did the Henrys end up in a hospital crying over their 20-year-old son's body? Dan called the police investigator in charge and was floored by

what he was told. So he said DJ was trying to run over two police officers and that they had to shoot him to stop him. The Henrys were dumbfounded. They knew DJ was out celebrating with friends after homecoming, but they could not imagine their son running down police with his car. Something had to have happened if that happened. Like, what caused him to do something that's so outside of his character? And Brandon affirmed for us that he didn't. Brandon Cox, DJ's best friend, was also at the hospital.

Brandon came in and sat down next to Danny's bed, and he just said he didn't deserve this. From what the Henrys could piece together, DJ, Brandon, and another friend were in DJ's car waiting outside of a bar, and police asked them to move out of a fire lane. Brandon said they weren't doing anything, and that out of the clear blue, some guy flashes across with a gun and starts shooting, and then before he knows it, he's on the car and he's shooting at them. and starts shooting. And then before he knows it, he's on the car and he's shooting at them. Brandon was sitting next to DJ in the car.

He was shot in the arm, but escaped serious injury. And we said, Brandon, we need to know everything. And Brandon said, no. We were driving. We were leaving. And he just kept saying he didn't deserve this. The family wanted answers. And that morning, headed to the Mount Pleasant Police Station

just hours after saying goodbye to their son. And we wanted to look them in the eyes and just say, you know, you need to know a little bit about our son. What the Henrys did not know is that the police chief, Louis Alagno, had already conducted a press conference implicating their son. At about 1.20 a.m. this morning, Mount Pleasant Police received a call of a disturbance. I respond to Finnegan's fight in progress. Alagno said several police officers responded to a fight at Finnegan's Grill,

a local bar about two miles from Pace University's campus. Reportedly, unruly patrons had spilled into the parking lot. It looks like it's just a large gathering of the bar outside. According to Alagno, when a policeman approached the car in the fire lane, the vehicle sped off and struck an officer. For an unknown reason, a vehicle that had been parked in a fire lane near Finnegan's Grill accelerated from the scene. A village of Pleasantville officer attempted to stop that vehicle.

That vehicle struck that officer. He was propelled onto the hood. I've got an officer down. Goodbye, vehicle. Alagno said the car continued to accelerate, and the officer on the hood of the car shot the driver. That driver was D.J. Henry. I'm truly saddened by the events that occurred this evening. My condolences go out to the family of the young man that died in this event.

The Henrys didn't want condolences. They wanted to know how Chief Alagno could make a public statement about their son without talking to them first. And you asked the question that they would conduct a press conference without even having talked with you as family, and the response was? That's what the officers on the scene told me happened, basically. And we pressed and said, look, we want truth. What we want is truth. That moment began a long legal journey that would take the Henrys from a strip mall in New York all the way to the United States Department of Justice. We're not anti-police. We're just trying to understand what the facts tell us. Was it a justified shooting or was it not justified? Because if it wasn't, it was murder.

justified shooting or was it not justified? Because if it wasn't, it was murder. WCBS Newstime 104. Police in Westchester in the community of Mount Pleasant fire at a speeding vehicle killing the driver identified as a Pace University student. We were pushing hard against a very strong current in those early days because they beat us out there with a narrative. And that narrative, as D.J.'s parents saw it, was that police were blaming D.J. for his own death. Good morning, everyone. The day after D.J. was killed, Chief Louis Alagno held a second press conference and gave more details.

The Pleasantville officer that was involved was Police Officer Aaron Hess. Police Officer Hess was the officer that ended up on the hood of the deceased vehicle. Officer Hess drew his pistol and fired into the vehicle. And, he said, D.J. was accelerating toward a second officer, Ronald Beckley, who had also fired at his car.

Another officer, Mount Pleasant Officer Beckley, who had also fired at his car. Another officer, Mount Pleasant officer Beckley, was also standing in a fire lane as this vehicle drove towards him. He also discharged his weapon at the vehicle. The effort clearly was to villainize our son. It was to make him seem like a criminal thug that needed to be stopped. But DJ's friends say that is not how it happened. We weren't doing anything wrong. We were in a wild, wild west. That's what it felt like. DJ's teammate, Desmond Hines, was in the car that night

with DJ, Brandon, and two other friends who went to Finnegan's. As long as the football team was together, that's where we wanted to be, having fun. After that fight broke out, the bartender called police and soon six officers arrived. DJ and his passengers were not involved and they headed to the doors. So it seemed a little bit early, but the lights came on and the bouncers were telling everybody to get out. DJ's friend, Brandon Cox.

They said, it's done, it's done, so we're leaving. You can see DJ here in security footage just minutes before he was shot. DJ, Brandon and Desmond waited outside in DJ's car for their two other friends. Brandon was in the front seat. As they were waiting, he remembers an officer tapping on the back window, asking them to move. And he started to make a forward motion to move forward. That's when DJ puts the car into drive and starts to pull away. He just pulled off slowly. And so where we were parked, it was like, there was like a curve in the, in the roadway. As we come around that curve, I can see somebody running from in between those

two cars with their gun raised. I look and I see this dance. Two hands on something. I never, I didn't see the gun. Two hands. Pointed at? Pointed at the vehicle. Within seconds, that somebody, Officer Hess, was up on the hood shooting. I could feel something hit my arm. At that moment, not sure what's going on, not sure what it is, and I'm just ducking down to just try to get out of harm's way. Brandon and Desmond both say they never saw that second officer, Ronald Beckley, at all. I didn't hear anything. It was like everything was silent. But I just saw bullet holes after bullet holes. There was three or four total.

At least one bullet hit the seat next to Desmond. Brandon had that graze wound to the arm. And DJ was shot twice, through his lungs and his heart. DJ goes, they shot me, they shot me. And then he just made this moan, this moan that I will never forget. DJ's car crashed into a parked cruiser and stalled to a stop here. DJ's car crashed into a parked cruiser and stalled to a stop here. Two officers took DJ out, handcuffed him, and laid him on the ground.

Desmond remembers being pulled out by yet another officer. And he slammed me on the ground. And I go, officer, we did absolutely nothing wrong. And he had a gun, and he pointed it to the back of my head. He said, shut the f*** up. And at that point, I thought I was going to die. F***! F***! F***! I was asking everyone, like, what happened? What happened? Daniel Parker was friends with Desmond and DJ from the football team.

And no one said anything. You know, everyone was just, like, staring. He came out of Finnegan's shortly after hearing a disturbance outside. Cell phone video shot by a fellow student captured that scene. Daniel spotted Desmond here on the sidewalk, also in handcuffs. I was like, Desmond, are you okay? And he was saying, like, they shot DJ. This is dash cam video from a cruiser that pulled in after the shooting. On the right is Officer Hess.

Behind him is DJ lying in the road. You know, I saw that no one was by him. And I was looking, I was like, you've got to be kidding me. Like, what's happening right now? Why is no one helping him? The first person to try and revive DJ was this woman in the white sweater. I was like, you gotta be kidding me. Like, what's happening right now? Why is no one helping him? The first person to try and revive DJ was this woman in the white sweater, a civilian. I saw her struggling to try to give him compressions,

and I was like, hey, you know, that's my teammate. Can I go help him? I said, I'm CPR certified. Can I help him? And the answer is, it's like, get the f*** back. And his, like, eyes was open, and I saw, like, blood in his mouth, and that's the moment's just like, get the f*** back. And his eyes was open. I saw blood in his mouth. And that's the moment I was like, y'all f***ing killed him. Daniel says after saying that, he was also thrown to the ground and handcuffed.

Ten long minutes had elapsed from that first call about the shooting before a DJ was finally hooked up to a defibrillator. the shooting before DJ was finally hooked up to a defibrillator. In the days after losing their eldest son, Dan and Angela Henry had to confront more than just their grief. They were facing two very different versions of events, one from the police and another from DJ's friends. So we immediately had a conflict. Clearly we knew we needed to have counsel, but I needed a really good local attorney who would push hard to get at truth.

The Henrys hired Michael Sussman, a legendary civil rights attorney from New York. And I remember in that first meeting, Dan Wright looking at me and saying to me, I don't want to make this about race. I don't want that to be the narrative. I want to understand the details of why it happened. Officer Hess, his knee badly injured, was also taken to the hospital that night. And soon he too had a lawyer of his own. He doesn't see himself as some kind of hero.

Aaron Hess is a victim. We gathered together to talk about being a catalyst for change. Let us pray together. I have to get up every day without him. I have to come home to an empty room. I'll often stare at his picture and just, I'll just talk to him. I'll just sit there and just really try to absorb the fact that this is how I'm supposed to be living now. In the months after DJ's death, as his family grieved, the Westchester District Attorney's

Office began an investigation, standard procedure at the time. In January of 2011, they convened a grand jury to see if Officer Hess should be charged with any crime. DJ's father, Dan Roy, was called to testify. The only questions I was asked two weeks before the grand jury wrapped up was, did I know that DJ drank occasionally? That's it. A month later, Mr. Henry got a call. Aaron Hess was not indicted on any charge. The DA's office in Westchester County executed a sham. Pretty strong words. Yeah,

that's what they did, and if I could think of a stronger word, I'd use it. The gentleman was not charged with anything, criminally negligent homicide, manslaughter, murder, anything. There should have been a charge, and there should have been a criminal trial. The Henrys should have had, if you will, the satisfaction, not that it's much satisfaction, of believing that their son's life had that much value. Hours after the grand jury decision, after Sussman's repeated urging, the U.S. Department of Justice began a separate investigation looking into a possible civil rights violation, a federal crime. Weeks later, Hess's union named him Officer of the Year. They said afterwards the award was not meant to be public. They wanted to do that privately to boost Aaron Hess's morale.

To boost the officer's morale. Because he had been through a lot. Because he had been through a lot. While the Department of Justice was looking into the case, because he had been through a lot. Because he had been through a lot. While the Department of Justice was looking into the case, the Henrys filed wrongful death suits against Aaron Hess, the village of Pleasantville, where Hess worked, and the town of Mount Pleasant, where DJ was shot.

Can I see your right hand, please? In August 2012, nearly two years after DJ's death, Hess came to the U.S. District Courthouse in Westchester for a deposition in the wrongful death cases. Were you the first police officer on the scene? Yes. With their attorney, Michael Sussman, asking questions, Dan and Angela Henry were there. It was really, really important to us to be in the room. We wanted to look in the eye of the guy that shot our son. We wanted to hear him tell us why, to see his face,

to have him look us in the eye, to see Danny when he looked us in the eyes. That night specifically was a bad night. I only reacted to what I thought, that I was going to be killed. Originally, I was worried that I was going to go in there and be just filled with anger, but I saw him and I just, I didn't feel anything for him. At the time DJ was killed, in 2010, Aaron Hess was 33 years old, married, and expecting twins. He had served four years in the Marines and had been a police officer since 2000, first in New York City and later for his hometown of Pleasantville, New York.

That was Aaron Hess. Well-liked. Brian Sokoloff represents Aaron Hess. Up until October 17, 2010, he had never fired his weapon in the line of duty. Response to Finnegan's, fight in progress. Hess arrived at Finnegan's shortly after the call went out about the fight. When that officer tapped on DJ's window, Hess says he was standing in the parking lot, about 30 feet away. Aaron Hess, who's around the bend, observes three things happen simultaneously. A, he hears an engine rev. B, he hears an officer yell, stop that car or stop that vehicle. And he sees an officer get turned off balance.

Turned off balance, suggesting that? Suggesting that something was amiss. Hess says that's why he stepped across the road to face DJ's car as it drove toward him. Could you determine its rate of speed? Fast. He puts up his hand and yells, Stop! Stop! The car doesn't stop.

He draws his weapon. Why didn't you move out of the way of the vehicle? Because I thought the vehicle was going to stop. Why did you believe that? I believed it was going to stop because every other vehicle I've asked to stop in my career have stopped. As the vehicle was coming towards me, I lunged forward as it hit my legs. my legs. At that time, as I was on the hood, the engine revved up again and seemingly, it seemed to me that I was trying to get thrown off the vehicle. At that time is when I fired my weapon. As he was shooting, Hess says he could not see anyone inside the car.

Who did you aim at? The center mass of the driver. So you saw the driver? I saw the silhouette. I didn't physically see a driver. It wasn't until they were both lying in the road, Hess says, that he first saw DJ. The first time I observed the driver, he was face down, handcuffed. Could you tell whether he was alive?

No. Could you see whether he was breathing? No. Now, what were you doing at that point? Lying on the ground as well. Was anyone tending to you at that point? No. Want to take a break?

Give me a second. Sure, take your time. I'd like somebody to tell me what other alternative Aaron Hess had on the hood of a moving vehicle other than trying to save his own life or closing his eyes and saying his prayers. Did you hear any comments or remarks about his status on the scene? Yes. What did you hear? I heard remarks about his status on the scene? Yes. What did you hear? I heard someone say he's dead.

Aaron Hess did not return to work after the shooting. He was on paid medical leave for two years, then retired with disability for his knee injury at the scene. Then, a few weeks after Hess was first deposed, the Henrys found support from a very surprising source. That second officer, whom Chief Alagno had said also fired at DJ's car, Ronald Beckley. He was willing to go against the script to try to stand up for what was true. The Henry's lawyer, Michael Sussman, is determined to keep DJ Henry's memory alive in the driveway of his home. Why do you keep this car? The car is a tangible representation of what happened.

And when you see the bullet holes and you see the situation with the axle of the car here and the wheel, you have a very clear, constant reminder of what happened. And I think that's very important to the truth-telling process. That truth, says Sussman, would come out during the wrongful death suits in the testimony of one brave police officer. Officer Ron Beckley. Who is he? He's an American hero. Ronald Beckley directly refuted the official version put out by his own department. In fact, the police chief's version was that D.J. Henry was threatening Beckley, which Beckley disavowed and said, this is not what happened. According to sworn testimony in those wrongful death suits, Mount Pleasant police officer Ronald Beckley arrived on the scene that night and fired his weapon for the first time

in his 30-year career at Aaron Hess. He sees a person, as he described it, in dark clothing, He's driving in dark clothing, jumping on a vehicle. And he takes out his weapon and he fires a shot because he sees the person jumping on the vehicle as the aggressor and believes that that person is shooting and endangering other people and he has to try to stop him. Beckley did not realize that Hess was a fellow officer. Within hours of the incident, Beckley reported his account to his superiors. But the official version from Chief Louis Alagno misrepresented Beckley's version,

leaving the impression that Beckley was shooting at D.J. Henry. Another officer, Mount Pleasant Officer Beckley, was also standing in a fire lane as this vehicle drove towards him. He also discharged his weapon at the vehicle. He was willing to go against the script to try to stand up for what was true. When Ronald Beckley did that, it was an answer to prayer. Ronald Beckley did that, it was an answer to prayer. Aaron Hess's lawyer, Brian Sokoloff, says Beckley is no hero and that he broke department rules. Officers are forbidden from firing at a moving vehicle. Instead of saying he was firing at the moving vehicle,

he then says, I was firing at Aaron Hess. Mr. Beckley didn't lie. Mr. Beckley showed tremendous courage both at the scene and afterwards because the blue coat of silence does exist. And Beckley knew, in a certain sense, that his career was over. Ronald Beckley retired three months

after D.J. Henry's death. He was denied a full disability pension. The person who apologized to the Henrys, the person who cried with the Henrys, was Officer Ronald Beckley, who said to them in my presence, I wish I could have stopped this and broke down. And then there is the question of how fast DJ Henry was driving. Michael Sussman gave us this video of a test conducted by Westchester County Police. In it, DJ's car is shown accelerating to where Aaron Hess was standing. But DJ's friends made it clear that he was driving slowly.

I would say maybe 15, 10 to 15 miles per hour. Nothing reckless? Nothing reckless. Nothing dangerous? No. Not endangering anybody? You saw no pedestrians at all? Nope, there were no pedestrians in the way. There was nothing blocking our path.

Initially, what was told to me by the DA's office was that there were a group of civilians who were crossing the path in the parking lot, and that the thought was he had to stop this car from running over those civilians. And when we started pulling it apart, no one could ever identify these civilians, where they were, how Hess knew anything about them. It just, it, there was no justification. It made no sense. Did he, Officer Hess, not have the option, the alternative of getting out of the way?

No, not at the time that he felt his life was in danger. So no room to maneuver? Not once he felt his life was in danger. So no room to maneuver? Not once he felt his life was in danger. However, Michael Sussman says this security video from the parking lot that night shows the brake lights of DJ Henry's car as he was nearing Aaron Hess. He was slowing down. So I don't have to rely on a million eyewitnesses.

I have the video showing the slowdown. I have the bullet holes. I have the video showing the slowdown. I have the bullet holes. DJ was every young man. DJ was not doing anything that was out of character, out of ordinary. He just wasn't. But just after DJ's death, a toxicology report was leaked to the press that showed his blood alcohol level at.13.

That means DJ would have been impaired that night. But Henry's lawyer disputes that. The bar owner who we spoke to and all the other people we spoke to about DJ in that bar said he had nothing to drink in the bar. I did not see him have one drink at Finnegan's. The entire evening? The entire evening I was there. According to DJ's friends, he did have one drink earlier in the evening, back at the dorm. That night, I witnessed him having one drink.

That's it? That was it. In a video from the bar that night, DJ does not appear to be impaired. I didn't see him wobbly. I didn't see him behaving in any kind of aberrant or unusual way whatsoever. Brian Sokoloff insists the toxicology report proved that DJ was breaking the law and had a reason for trying to leave the parking lot quickly. He did have a fake ID. He was intoxicated. We produced a report by an eminent toxicologist.

There's no other evidence on this. There's been no other report, no other expert contradicts this. For those who say DJ Henry was drunk, okay, let me make something very clear. No officer at that scene had any knowledge of DJ's drinking. So he wasn't acting like he was drunk if he was drunk, and we have no real reason to believe he was. It's that simple. I want to make this clear. We are not looking to demonize Damroy Henry, who tragically lost his life that night. An officer is entitled to protect his own life. And that's the answer.

DJ was devalued. It's the simplest way to put it. He was some kind of common criminal who was handcuffed, thrown to the gutter. Sit. ¶¶ Through their pain as the wrongful death suits dragged on the Henry's were still waiting

to see if the Justice Department would bring criminal charges in their son's case we just wanted to know if he was justified in taking our son's life if he was justified in taking our son's life. See more evidence photos at 48hours.com These are DJ's ashes.

Burberry was his favorite, so that's why we have this Burberry finish. And then someone gave us this angel, which we felt was fitting to be here. By 2015, it had been four years since the Justice Department began its investigation. The Henrys' hopes were with then U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. And he said, look, I'm not afraid to prosecute these things. I'll take them on. You should know. I'm not afraid to do it. So we were hopeful. But they were warned that it wouldn't be easy.

He said to us that the standard for prosecution was a high standard known as willfulness. There had to be a willful violation of civil rights. So you saw the driver? I saw the silhouette. Proving willfulness would be hard because Aaron Hess said he could only see a silhouette when he made the choice to shoot DJ Henry from point-blank range. Aaron Hess could not see into the car. He did not know the race, the gender, the age of anybody in the car. Do you think that the events of October 17, 2010, would have unfolded differently if the occupants of the car were white?

Absolutely not. The Henrys did not get the result they sought. They chose not to pursue federal civil rights charges. There were no charges. The Henrys did not get the result they sought. They chose not to pursue federal civil rights charges. There were no charges. The U.S. attorney found that Aaron Hess had to make a split-second decision, and the law allows latitude for an officer's judgment. Despondent after exhausting all criminal options,

in 2016 the Henrys decided to settle their wrongful death suit with the village of Pleasantville and Aaron Hess. The village paid $6 million. It's in a trust. We won't touch it. It's blood money to us. Blood money. They want you to put a dollar amount on your child's life. How can you do that? There is no appropriate amount.

In 2017, the Henrys also settled the wrongful death suit with the town of Mount Pleasant for an undisclosed amount. But they got something more valuable to them, a public apology. They wanted to apologize in private, but we felt that they mischaracterized our son in public, so the apology should be made public. so the apology should be made public. Knowing that even in his death they continued to bash his name and say such negative things is just adding salt to the wound. The town released this statement, which read, in part, quote, the town regrets any statement made on its behalf in the immediate aftermath of the incident

and regrets the misimpression of DJ Henry those statements may have caused. If it were up to me, I wouldn't even want them to say anything. They've said enough. By what they've done, they've said enough. But something big was achieved. Seven long years after the tragic death of their promising young son, the Henrys cleared Danroy Henry Jr.'s name. It was important because we knew who our son was and is.

Do you consider that public apology an admission of guilt? Yes. I mean, that's how we took it. I think in the public apology they say it's not, but that's how we took it. But the fact remains that no criminal charges were brought in D.J. Henry's case.

Today, Aaron Hess is employed in private security. When you do think about Officer Hess, what are your thoughts? I'm praying that at some moment in his life, he will fall to his knees and ask for forgiveness for what he did. And I pray that he never has to deal with it

with his children. I try not to think about him. I try not to. Good evening. My name is Dan Henry. Through their sorrow, the Henrys have found a way to honor their son's memory.

In 2011, they started a charity called the DJ Henry Dream Fund. The foundation was a way to honor our son's love of fitness and sports. The fund sponsors children in need from New England to attend summer camps and programs. So far, it has given away over half a million dollars to deserving kids. What moves me the most is when kids that come and tell their stories say thank you to Danny.

That's powerful. DJ Henry's life was powerful. Childhood friend Brandon Cox keeps a wristband. It says this is to the memory of Dan Roy Henry. No matter what, I'm going to remember him. He's a part of me forever. Today, the Henry's spend a lot of time on Martha's vineyard. They came here as a family when DJ was alive. Now they keep him alive in their hearts with the memorial bench that overlooks the ocean. You try not to get sad.

Yeah. What do you want people to remember about DJ, about Danny? I want them to remember his life, not his death. his life, not his death. I want them to remember the giving, kind, nurturing, loving spirit that he is. We should know that he would have done great things if he was here destined for great things. Amazing person that this world loves. Danny would walk around the house and say, I have to travel, I don't have the time. You know, I have to do this, I don't have the time. And we would look at house and say, I have to travel, I don't have the time.

You know, I have to do this, I don't have the time. And we would look at him and say, you have all the time. You have your whole life. In his mind, I think he knew that maybe he wasn't supposed to be here on this earth in a physical form for very long, that he was maybe supposed to help in a different way. I know that there's more. I just know at the end of the day I'll get to be with him again.

Chief Louis Alagno retired in 2013. In 2015, New York state law changed. Police shootings of unarmed civilians are now automatically assigned to a special prosecutor. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly? Introducing the best idea yet, a brand new podcast from Wondery and T-Boy about the surprising origin stories of the products you're obsessed with and the bold risk takers who brought

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