DJ Henry's Family Questions Death Investigation
THORNWOOD, N.Y. (CBS/AP) ― CBS sources say that toxicology tests reveal that Danroy "DJ" Henry's blood alcohol level was .13 early Sunday morning when he was shot to death by a police officer in Thornwood, N.Y.
Henry, who was from North Easton and was a Pace University student, was shot and killed outside a bar after police were called there for a disturbance.
Sen. Scott Brown told WEEI-AM's Dennis and Callahan show on Wednesday that Henry was a "designated driver" and was at the Thornwood, N.Y. bar to pick up friends.
The legal limit in New York is .08. Henry's father, Danroy Henry Sr., said outside his Massachusetts home Friday that the release of the autopsy finding seemed aimed at swaying public opinion.
"If it's a part of the truth, so be it," he said. "But at the end of the day, the central question to us is, does that justify killing our son? ... We still fundamentally believe it isn't."
Saturday morning, the family released a statement saying they still had not received a report of the autopsy.
They say that the fact that people close to the case released Henry's blood alcohol level to the media demonstrates "that those conducting this investigation either are intentionally seeking to align with those who killed DJ or are not in control of the information being generated as part of their investigation."
Michael Sussman, a lawyer for Henry's family, said Henry had been at the bar for about an hour and a half but hadn't been drinking because he was a designated driver. Two days earlier, Sussman had said Henry hadn't been inside Finnegan's Grill.
Sussman said police were releasing the information "to change the conversation away from what police did."
"Probably several million college students have levels of 0.13 on Saturday night and early Sunday morning," Sussman said. "It had nothing to do with police approaching him."
Police say they fired upon Henry's car when he refused to stop for police.
According to police, Henry was driving off when an officer knocked on his window and asked him to stop. When he didn't stop, the officer radioed to a fellow officer for help.
When the second officer allegedly tried to stop Henry, he hit the officer with his car.
Another police officer who tried to pull the cop off Henry's hood got hit as well, police said.
When Henry still didn't stop, officers opened fire on him and killed him, police said.
An unidentified passenger in the car with Henry was also shot, but the wound was minor.
It is not clear if Henry was involved in the initial altercation, but police say he did not cooperate with their requests to stop driving.
A preliminary autopsy confirmed "death by gunshot."
Mount Pleasant Police Chief Louis Alagno did not say which officer's bullet caused the death or how many times Henry was hit.
He said the investigation will take months.
A union representing one of the officers who fired on the car, Pleasantville Officer Aaron Hess, said in a statement Friday that Hess "acted in accordance with his training and as required under the circumstances with which he was confronted."
The other officer who fired at the car has been identified as Mount Pleasant Officer Ronald Beckley.
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