Family of black man slain in NY suburb reaches $6 million settlement

Send a link to a friend  Share

[March 15, 2016]  (Reuters) - The family of a black university student who was shot to death by police in a suburb north of New York City have reached a $6 million settlement with the town where he was shot and the officer, the family's attorney said on Monday.

The agreement comes amid heightened scrutiny of police violence, particularly against people of color, in the wake of numerous high-profile police slayings of unarmed black people since mid-2014 that have fueled the Black Lives Matter movement.

Danroy Henry Jr, 20, who was a junior at Pace University, where he was a football player, was fatally shot by Officer Aaron Hess early on the morning of Oct. 17, 2010.

Henry's parents, Angella Henry and Danroy Henry Sr, of Massachusetts, filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, in White Plains, against the village of Pleasantville, which is some 30 miles north of New York City, and against Hess.

Michael Sussman, an attorney for the family, said they accepted an offer of judgment in the amount of $6 million from the defendants.

Representatives for Hess and the town of Pleasantville could not be immediately reached for comment Monday night.

Henry was with several friends at a bar when a fight broke out that prompted the owner to close down around 1 a.m. and call the police, according to prosecutors and court records.

Henry got in his car and waited for his friends in a fire lane outside the establishment, and when an officer knocked on his car window, Henry drove off.

Hess then appeared in front of the car and Henry attempted to brake before striking Hess. After the collision, Hess opened fire on Henry while on the car's hood, killing Henry and injuring a passenger.

[to top of second column]

Federal prosecutors declined to bring charges against the officers from the town of Mount Pleasant and Pleasantville, saying: "Neither accident, mistake, fear, negligence nor bad judgment is sufficient to establish a willful federal criminal civil rights violation."

Sussman said he was still pursuing a separate lawsuit against Mount Pleasant and several of its officers, alleging they failed to provide Henry needed medical care after the shooting.

Police killings that have sparked waves of angry protest and nights of rioting elsewhere in the United States since mid-2014 have led to multi-million dollar settlements, including a $6.4 million payout to the family of Freddie Gray in Baltimore and $5.9 million to the estate of Eric Garner in New York City.

(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Leslie Adler)

[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]

Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Back to top