Cop’s award latest odd twist in Pace case

Cop’s award latest odd twist in Pace case

Photo by Ryan T. Conaty (file)
By Margery Eagan  |   Thursday, April 14, 2011  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Columnists

You hear it. You almost can’t believe it.

The police union in Mount Pleasant, a small town outside New York City, just gave its officer of the year award to Aaron Hess, now under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department for fatally shooting Pace University football player Danroy “DJ” Henry, 20, from Easton.

“What did he do to win this award? Kill our son?”

So asked DJ’s mother, Angella Henry, yesterday. Yet she spoke not in anger but in the calm, matter-of-fact, what-do-you-expect tone she and her husband have maintained since enduring one bizarre twist after another in a disheartening, six-month journey through the court system there.

Retired Boston police Lt. Tom Nolan reacted with far more ire yesterday.

“It’s outrageous and frankly disgraceful,” said Nolan, a 27-year police veteran now teaching at Boston University. “Police know this was a questionable shooting at best, a situation where the life of an unarmed student athlete was taken.

“If that’s the most commendable and laudable and praiseworthy thing that went on in Mount Pleasant in 2010, that says a lot.”

You know, most police departments commend officers who, as Nolan put it, perform “selfless acts of heroism, putting themselves in harm’s way” to save the rest of us, who are extremely grateful. An award to an officer in the midst of a criminal investigation and multiple civil suits? Unheard of.

Equally unheard of in a disputed case such as this? A secret grand jury’s failure to indict anybody and allow open court hearings to follow. In March, however, after a judge demanded videos that DJ’s teammates insist support their version of events, a prosecutor abruptly dropped all charges — resisting arrest and disorderly conduct — against those teammates. They, like the Henrys, have argued that what’s really going on here is prosecutors protecting police, a charge both have denied. Yet no one has answered two central questions here: Was Hess struck by Henry’s car before he opened fire? If not, why did he not just get out of the way? And why did Henry lie mortally wounded — yet handcuffed and unattended — for so long that awful night?

Angella Henry said yesterday, “I’m thankful in a way (that this happened) because now everyone sees what we’ve been dealing with. It’s hurtful, yes, but we’re not surprised.”

DJ’s younger brother Kyle was not surprised, either.

“They killed an innocent man,” he told his mother. “Why would you expect anything different?”

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