Danroy Henry, 20, was a Pace University junior Defensive back football player who cops fatally shot early Sunday morning after he ran down officers during a brawl outside a Westchester County bar, police said.
The chaotic chain of events began around 1:20 a.m., after a homecoming game celebration at Finnegan’s Grill in Thornwood, when officers responded to reports of ‘a large group of unruly patrons’ outside, police said.
As officers tried to contain several fights in the parking lot, one cop approached a silver Nissan parked in a fire lane and knocked on the window, said Mount Pleasant Police Chief Louis Alagno.
But the driver, Henry, stepped on the gas, knocking a Pleasantville cop onto the hood, Alagno said.
A second cop tried to pull the officer off the hood but was knocked to the ground.
[pagebreak]
With Henry continuing to accelerate, the officer clinging to the windshield pulled out his gun and fired several shots, police said.
An officer from the Mount Pleasant police, who was in the path of the oncoming car, also opened fire. The bullet-riddled vehicle then slammed into a police cruiser and came to a halt.
Henry, a business management major from North Easton, Mass., was declared dead at Westchester Medical Center.
[pagebreak]
A passenger in the car of slain Henry said Monday that the first shots fired by cops were unprovoked.
‘They shot me, they shot me, they shot me,’ Henry whispered as cops hauled him from the car and cuffed him on the street, pal Brandon Cox said.
‘None of us deserved what happened that night. I’m just devastated at the loss of my friend.’
The account from Cox, who was wounded by the police bullets, is in stark contrast to the police version of events.
[pagebreak]
Police had said officers opened fire only after Henry, 20, struck two of them with his car while speeding away from a Westchester County watering hole where a brawl erupted.
Cox says the first shots were fired before any officer was hit and that Henry drove off only after being told to move by cops.
‘As they were leaving, a police officer jumped in front of the car and started shooting,’ Cox’s father, Tom Parks, said outside the family’s Massachusetts home on Monday, shortly before friends and family held a candlelight vigil nearby.
