True Crime with Kendall Rae - You NEED To Know About DJ Henry’s Case

Episode Date: September 21, 2023

In 2010 while out one night with some friends, 20-year-old Black college student DJ Henry was shot and killed by a white police officer. In a case of racially motivated police brutality, the officer jumped up onto Henry’s car and shot him multiple times through the windshield. REOPEN DJ’S Case! https://www.change.org/p/new-york-gov...  DEMAND JUSTICE FOR DJ: http://justicefordjhenry.website2.me/... Best resource for guidance on where to donate and what petitions to sign:  https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co Learn more about Campaign Zero here: https://www.joincampaignzero.org/  Learn more abut the DJ Henry Dream Fund and donate here! https://djdreamfund.org/ Donate to NCMEC through my campaign! https://give.missingkids.org/campaign/kendall-rae/c438796 This episode is sponsored by: ZocDoc Nutrafol - promo code: KENDALLRAE Check out Kendall's other podcasts: The Sesh & Mile Higher Follow Kendall! YouTube Twitter Instagram Facebook Mile Higher Zoo REQUESTS: General case suggestion form: https://bit.ly/32kwPly Form for people directly related/ close to the victim: https://bit.ly/3KqMZLj Discord: https://discord.com/invite/an4stY9BCN CONTACT: For Business Inquiries - [e-mail]

Hey guys, welcome back to my channel. This case is very upsetting. This is another case of police brutality on a young black man. It happened a while ago and a lot of people don't know about it and they should. I'm going to try to be on my best behavior as much as I can. Of course, I will leave petitions below that you absolutely should take a few seconds out of your day per petition and sign as well as other places that you can donate that truly need help. Try to use the cleanest language that I possibly can. So this is Dan Roy Henry Jr. otherwise known as Danny or DJ. Most people call him DJ, his mom calls him Danny. I'm going to go ahead and call him DJ in this video

because it seemed like that's what he liked to be called most. So DJ was born on October 29th, 1989. He grew up in Eastern Massachusetts and he was very, very close with his family. So DJ was the oldest in his family. Their middle child was named Kyle and he also had a sister named Amber, who was the youngest. His father is named

Dan Roy or Dan and his mother is Angela. So Dan and Angela had built a really great life for themselves. They worked incredibly hard for their kids to have the best possible life that they could. And DJ was an awesome kid. He was always willing to help out his family with chores or whatever they needed around the house as well as take care of his younger brother and sister. His mom described DJ as a very gentle spirit that he was a really kind guy. He was that selfless type of person that would give you the shirt off of his back.

He always did the right thing and he tried to be the best possible example he could for other people. And like I said, he loved his family. They really were like a team in a way. He even had tattoos on his wrist that said family first. So he was that type of guy. Their family spent a lot of time together. They were always supportive of each other, you know, from their creatives to sports, but really they were always there for each other. So DJ graduated

from Oliver Ames High School in Aston, Massachusetts in June of 2007. After that, he ended up playing football at PACE University in Pleasantville, New York. Have you ever been on the hunt for a new doctor and you ask literally everyone you know for the recommendation? You know, a doctor who actually gets you, listens to you, makes you feel super comfortable, and then finally, after weeks of searching, you find the one. So you call their office, and they have an appointment available, which is great, but then the receptionist tells you that this perfect doctor doesn't take your insurance. It's the worst, but if you head over to ZockDock to find a book that is right for you, you

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cheer him on in the homecoming football game. They drove up to the school, watch the game. It was really fun. And then they headed back home. But early the next morning on October 17, 2010, DJ's mom and dad woke up to someone knocking on their front door. It ended up being two police officers, and they came and told them that the night before, DJ had been in a really bad accident and was at the hospital. They freaked out, of course, and they immediately called the hospital. And it was then that a nurse told them that DJ wasn't just in an accident.

DJ was shot by someone who was supposed to protect him, a police officer, and had already died. As soon as they found out the news, they were completely shocked, devastated, and confused. The whole family piled into the car. They said they didn't even know if they locked up the front door They just headed straight to the Westchester Medical Hospital. This is about a three-hour car ride. So imagine Driving with that news not understanding what had happened and just having so many questions. You're so shocked

You're so confused and you have to make a three-hour drive to New York once they got to the hospital They sat with DJ. They prayed. They, you know, said their goodbyes to him. His sister Amber was actually not home at the time, so she met them at the hospital and said goodbye as well. As soon as they, you know, processed DJ's death, said goodbye and had some time to get their heads together, Dan immediately called the police investigator to see what had happened. And this is when they told him that the reason DJ had been shot was because he had attempted to run over two police officers

and they had no choice but to shoot him. Their family was totally in shock and in disbelief, they knew that that could not be the full story. There's no way their son would just randomly decide to drive his car into a police officer. The whole story didn't make any sense. They knew there had to be something missing. They had just seen him at the homecoming game. He was doing fine. He was emotionally fine. He was happy and he was going out with his friends that night to celebrate homecoming weekend. And that's the last they knew. Something had to have happened if that happened.

Like, what caused him to do something that's so outside of his character? So this is DJ's best friend, Brandon, and he was with DJ that night. So when Brandon got to the hospital, he was able to tell the family what really happened. And he said the police had it all wrong. Brandon explained that there was a fight in a bar that they were at, and they were not involved in the fight. And I'll talk more about that later. But they cleared the bar and Brandon said that they were trying to leave. Him, DJ, and a few other friends were waiting outside of the bar in a car getting ready to leave.

This is when a police officer walked up to the car and gave him kind of a signal to pull forward because they were in a fire lane. Brandon said that as they were leaving, they slowly started pulling away from the bar. And in only seconds, a police officer jumped on top of their car and started shooting through the windshield at all of them. Brandon himself was shot in the arm. At first, their family was super confused because they were like, this makes no sense.

If you guys were just in a fire lane and we're moving out of it, why would an officer jump on top of the car and shoot through the windshield? They just couldn't wrap their minds around that story. It didn't make any sense. However, Brandon insisted that that's what truly happened and the police officer had no right to shoot. So the family ended up going to the Mount Pleasant Police Department with this information to talk with them and try to figure out what actually happened. However, by this point, police chief Louis Alango had already held a press conference discussing the incident. This is before he even talked to the family. He went out and pushed out

their narrative. He said that around 120 that morning police received a call that there was a disturbance at a bar named Finnegan's Grill. They were told that there was a fight happening there. He said a group of officers went out to check things out. They came up to the scene and the bar was pretty much cleared out. There's an audio recording from a police radio scanner that said that there was a group of people hanging outside in the parking lot

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He said at that point, an officer walked up to their car and asked them to move out of the fire lane just as Brandon had said. But their version of events was that DJ then took off speeding away from the scene right towards an officer. They then claimed DJ hit the officer, the officer flew on top of his windshield and had no choice at that point but to shoot a bunch of times through the windshield. Brandon and other witnesses there said that this just was not true. And it also made no sense. Why would DJ just speed off after being so calm all night? Brandon said that he was only going like 10 to 15 miles an hour, he was slowly pulling away, nothing crazy, and that's why they were also shocked and confused when an officer jumped on top of the car. He said they did not hit him. So DJ's parents are hearing two stories, and they're obviously really mad at this point because the police chief had already made

a statement to the public and put their version of events out as the truth. So the next day, the chief gave another press conference. This is when he revealed that the officer involved in the shooting was named Aaron Hesse. They also found out in addition to Aaron shooting into the car another officer had shot at the vehicle. His name was Ronald Beckley. The family was just devastated. They were angry. They felt like this was not the true story that was being pushed out. His father Dan said it felt like they were trying to make DJ look like a bad guy. Like a thug who needed to be stopped, who needed to be shot. So they ended up talking to another friend that was in the car that night and his name

was Desmond Hines. And he told the exact same story. They were all at the bar, everything was fine, and then a fight broke out, which they were not involved in. There's literally footage of DJ and his friends at the bar and DJ seems completely finding things very calm, he's not fighting or anything, and he calmly walks out. The bar tender called the cops and six officers showed up to the scene. DJ Brandon and Desmond were in the car waiting for their other two friends to come out of

the bar so that they could all leave. Then the officer comes up, taps on the window, tells them to move out of the fire lane, so they did. DJ pulls out around 10 to 15 miles an hour and starts making his way out of the area. Desmond said that the officer was already pointing the gun at their car as they were approaching. And they said that it happened really, really fast that in only seconds, Aaron has jumped on top of their hood and

started shooting into the car. After DJ was hit, he obviously lost control of the vehicle and it slowed down and veered off and eventually hit a police car. Once the car stopped to other officers, pulled Deji out of the car and put him in handcuffs when they should have been calling the ambulance right away. But instead, they put him in handcuffs and put him on the ground and he was left there alone with no one checking on him or Tending to him. Desmond said that another officer pulled him out of the car slammed him to the ground and as Desmond was on the ground He was pleading with the officers, you know, saying please help our friend and we did nothing wrong

And at that point they put a gun to the back of his head and said shut the f up So there's obviously a ton of noise from this and people from the bar came over to see what had happened One of their other friends Daniel Parker walked out of the bar And that's where he saw his friend DJ on the ground in handcuffs and he wasn't moving at all He was totally alone in his final moments, without anyone concerned with helping him. Finally, some other random moment from the bar ran over to him and started trying to restesitate him. This is when Daniel, who was CPR certified, asked if he could go help DJ, and the cop told him no. Not only did he say no, he actually said get the F back. Eventually,

they noticed that blood was coming out of DJ's mouth and they knew at that moment that they had killed him. Daniel starts screaming at the officers saying you killed him. And this is when he was also thrown to the ground and put in handcuffs. It wasn't until 10 minutes after he was shot that an ambulance showed up and tried to resuscitate him, but by that time it was obviously too late. DJ's funeral was held on Friday, October 29, 2010, at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in Massachusetts. This day was extra special as it would have been his 21st birthday. The service included tons of people speaking out with great memories they had about DJ, as well as everyone including their church choir singing Happy Birthday to him and eating

cake, trying to celebrate his life. But everyone was just so devastated and so confused. Their family knew that this was just the beginning of their new fight for justice. So obviously at this point DJ's parents are hearing two different stories, one from the police and one from DJ's friends. This is when they decided to hire a really good attorney, Michael Susman, who helped them out with the case. At the same time, Aaron has hired a lawyer of his own. As months went on, the Westchester DA's office started investigation on the case, which is just standard practice. It's not anything special. And in January of 2011, a jury was put together to determine whether or not

officer Hess needed to shoot DJ or not. DJ's father was called forth to testify and he said that it was really ridiculous, but they only asked him questions about DJ and his drinking. DJ was about to turn 21, but he was under the age of this time, and they asked if he knew that DJ drank occasionally. Of course, he said, yes, I mean, he's a college student, and he did drink that night, so we'll get a little more into that later.

But about a month later, Dan got a call that Aaron Hess was not charged with anything. So they were not going to take this as a final answer and their attorney started right away working to fight back. After doing more work, they eventually got the attention of the DOJ. It was announced that they were going to come in and do a separate investigation on the case and see if there was a possible federal crime here. If there was a civil rights violation, it could be considered a federal crime, but it wasn't going to be easy to prove this. In order for Aaron has to be prosecuted, they have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Aaron had willfully killed DJ. And you will not believe this, but a few weeks after all of this,

Aaron Hess was named officer of the year. Yeah, you heard that right. The police later came out and said that the public wasn't supposed to know that he got officer of the year and that it was intended to boost Aaron's morale because he'd had a tough year. So obviously their family was beyond a past at this point.

I mean, they are handling this just terribly. So Aaron Hess was 33 at the time that DJ was killed. He had served in the Marines for four years and was a police officer since 2000. So while the DOJ is doing their investigation, Dan and Angela filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Aaron Hess, the village of Pleasantville where he worked, and the town of Mount Pleasant where DJ was shot. In August of 2012, Hess went to the US District Court House and Westchester for a deposition in the wrongful death case that the parents had filed.

And during this time, Aaron Hess told his version of the story. He claimed that he was standing in the road, and that DJ's car was headed towards him, and he claims that he yelled at him to stop several times but he didn't. He said when they didn't stop he had no choice but to start shooting because he feared for his life. And that is the big part of this case is whether or not Aaron Hess truly needed to shoot. Did he really have a reason to believe his life was in danger? Why was he not able to just move out of the way? Aaron claims that he didn't even know that DJ was black. He said that he just saw civil rights in the car and didn't know who he was shooting at. Now he says this for a reason obviously. Whether it's true or not, we have no way to determine that. But he obviously said this

to avoid it being a possible civil rights violation. During the wrongful death suit, a huge thing happened in the case. The other officer, Ronald Beckley, who had shot at the car, came forward and told a totally different version of events. He said that what the police chief said was actually inaccurate. If you remember the chief said that another officer also shot at the car, he said that he was not shooting at the car to try to stop the car or the people in it. He said that he was not shooting at the car to try to stop the car or the people in it. He claims that he actually was shooting at Aaron Hess

because he didn't realize he was a fellow officer. He just thought it was someone wearing dark clothes who started attacking a vehicle and shooting into it. He thought civilians were in danger and he needed to shoot at the person who was on top of the car. So even to an officer that was there, it looked like Aaron was the aggressor in the situation. And Ronald ended up retiring three months after DJ's death

and was denied any pension pay. Aaron, if you're wondering, never went back to work because he had a knee injury that night. And he was put on paid medical leave for two years before he finally retired. So as the investigation continued, eventually the police decided to stage a reenactment of the situation, but determined how fast DJ possibly could have been going, because Aaron said that he was going full like pedal to the metal, but Brandon and Desmond said that he was going like 10 to 15. But soon footage came out from the night night and it showed DJ using his brakes, his brake lights went on as he was approaching Aaron.

He was trying to slow down, he was trying to stop. He definitely was not speeding up at him the way that Aaron claimed. Soon DJ's toxicology report came back though and they were all pretty shocked about this. His blood alcohol level was 0.13 so he was driving under the influence. It's very weird though, because his friends said they

didn't see him drink anything that night other than when they were pre-gaming before they left for the bar. So it's kind of a high blood alcohol content, but I'm not sure, I mean, he could have been drinking more that night, and they'll be comments that are like, well, he was drunk, blah, blah, blah, blah, just because he was drinking does not mean an officer had the right to jump on the hood of his car and start shooting at him. And killed him.

Even if he was driving under the influence, he did not deserve to die. Period. Period. He was also acting completely fine. Even the bartender said he was acting completely normal. There's footage of him at the bar where he seems like he's not impaired at all. He's acting completely fine. However, Aaron's lawyer says that DJ had a fake ID that night and that he also was drinking and that's why he was trying to get out of there so fast. But of course once that footage was found where he was clearly breaking, the whole story of him being drunk and flooring it towards this officer made no sense. My wife and I have said from the beginning, we want the whole truth. This feels like

it's driven by an agenda that is is attempting to sway the public's opinion about what happened to our son. But at the end of the day, the central question to us is, does that justify killing our son? Our son is dead. He's been killed and shot by police. So by 2015, four years after the DOJ started their investigation, they came to the conclusion that they were not going to give Aaron has any civil rights charges. They claimed that Aaron did what he had to do in the situation

that he performed the best of his ability given the circumstances. And of course, their family and tons of other people following this case were just infuriated. In 2016, the family decided that they were going to settle their wrongful death lawsuit with the village of Pleasantville and Aaron. And the village of Pleasantville ended up having to pay them six million dollars. Their family said that all of this money isn't a trust. They call it blood money. They do not use it. They're saving it. And they feel like honestly, it wasn't enough You know, how can you put a dollar amount on your kids life? In 2017, Henry's also settled a wrongful death suit with the town of Mount Pleasant for an undisclosed amount So who knows how much that was also the town of Mount Pleasant said that they would like to privately

Apologize to the family for what had happened and the family was like Why would you not make a public apology? I mean, first of all, this is the public situation. You publicly put out wrong information in the beginning. They made their son out to be a bad person. And it would only be right if they made a public apology. Family of a young man from Eastern shot and killed by police in New York. Well, finally, get what they've been fighting for

for more than seven years and apology. This is closure for the legal aspect of our of our experience with that tragic night. You know, losing our son is painful enough and then to have people drag his name through the mud made it that much more painful for us. I am happy for our son because in the early days, they tried so hard to make him look like something he wasn't.

And paint him in such a negative light. So this for us is priceless. This apology helps to balance what we were feeling was sort of a negative impression of our son. So in the end, Aaron Hess was not charged at all. He retired from the police force and he ended up finally getting a job as a security guard. The Henry family is still hurting to this day. They're still very active in Black Lives Matter and the entire movement as a whole.

They also created a charity to honor their son and it is called DJ Henry Dream Fund. The fund's children all New England, you need financial assistance to get into like summer programs and sports and activities and stuff like that. So far, the fund is

already given away half a million dollars. I'm he's a D.J. Henry field and this is just a very small part of the legacy that that young man left behind. His foundation in his name actually helps

7,000 kids in 80 different communities. They worked so diligently to try to disparage our son's name and it felt like an upward battle to make sure that people knew who he really was and knew that he wasn't the things that they claimed he was. And so that was what really I wanted people to know, like this is our son, this is what he was about, his smile, his heart, his generosity,

how he was a gentle spirit. That's what we want people to remember. And we're honoring him that way through the foundation. We're making sure that his spirit lives, his generosity, all those things that he showed us. We wanna make sure other people see that. Most recently, J-Z actually partnered with multiple families, including the Henry's.

And they took out a full page ad across the country in dedication to the recent murder of George Floyd. The ad is captioned in dedication to George Floyd, hashtag justice for George Floyd. The letter is signed by Jay-Z, parents of others who have been killed, and both of Jay's parents. Jay is just one of many of the people who have been killed in an act of police violence, police brutality. We have a major problem and it has to stop. Please see the description box for more information, resources, ways to donate and petitions to sign. No justice, no peace.

No peace. That is going to be it for me today, guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode. And make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple Podcast. It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Ray.

I will be back with another episode soon, but until then, stay safe out there.