Senator Scott Brown Takes Up Case of Pace Football Player's Death

Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown is asking for an investigation into the death of a local football player who was shot by police while trying to leave the scene of a bar brawl where he was apparently a bystander.

Brown told WEEI-AM radio in Brighton, Mass., that 20-year-old Danroy "D.J." Henry Jr., was a model kid and star high school football player when he died near Pace University in Westchester County, New York, on Sunday morning.

Brown said Henry, who came from a Boston suburb, had been the "designated driver" for his friends who'd been at a Thornwood, N.Y., bar when the fight spilled into a parking lot.

According to reports, Henry was trying to get out of the way but clipped a police officer with his side-view mirror and hit another who landed on his hood. That officer and another reportedly then fired at Henry, who crashed his car and was dragged out of it and held in handcuffs for 15 minutes while officers attended to other people receiving treatment from EMTs.

"He wasn't drinking, and no drugs. He swung around to pick up some people. Apparently, he had the big stereo system with the woofers and he was parked in the fire lane. When the officer apparently knocked on his window, he took off, thinking that they wanted him to move, apparently," Brown told WEEI-AM’s "Dennis & Callahan" show.

"We're going to ask for an investigation, obviously, a thorough investigation because you have a kid who is a star football player from this area, a great kid, no record, nothing. And to end his life under these circumstances, I think it's important to get the facts and get them quickly," Brown said.

Henry's family reportedly has hired a civil rights attorney to look into whether Officers Aaron Hess and Ronald Beckley took excessive actions to stop the car.

Brandon Cox, also 20, reportedly was in the car with Henry during the shooting and suffered a non-life-threatening gunshot wound to his left arm. His mother, Donna Parks, told the Enterprise News in Brockton, Mass., that she and her husband were also hiring a lawyer in New York.

Mount Pleasant Police Chief Louis Alagno on Tuesday expressed his sympathy to Henry's family, telling the Enterprise News that the turn of events was "a horrible, horrible tragedy."