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Local Cops Defend Conduct In Pace Student Shooting

102210pace.jpg The lawyer for six of the students arrested during last weekends fatal shooting of Pace University student Danroy Henry is calling on federal prosecutors to investigate the case. Attorney Bonita Zelman believes that local and state police agencies currently probing the chaotic events surrounding the shooting “are responsible for the failure to train these officers” who shot Henry. “They can’t run around with guns and Tasers threatening innocent college students...You don’t shoot at a moving car when there are innocent passengers and innocent kids all around the area,” Zelman told the Post. But those local authorities countered many of Zelman and her clients' claims during a press conference today.

Previously, eye witnesses claimed that Henry was handcuffed and left on the road for up to 15 minutes without medical attention while medical teams treated a less seriously injured officer at the scene, and students who tried to help him were either Tasered or handcuffed. Mount Pleasant Police Chief Louis Alagno listed response times and details countering those allegations. According to him, the first report of a disturbance in Finnegan's Grill was at 1:19 a.m. Sunday, and the first report of a shooting was at 1:25 a.m. Between 1:28 and 1:30 a.m., officers noted Henry's "grave condition," retrieved oxygen and a defibrillator, and took over CPR from an unidentified woman. By 1:35 a.m., Henry was loaded on a stretcher and wheeled to an ambulance. The Pleasantville PBA also defended the police officer whose bullet killed Henry, "Officer [Aaron] Hess fired his weapon to stop the threat that was presented by the vehicle and the actions of the drive."

Students on the scene still disagree with the assessment that local police had control of the situation. "None of it made sense to me...Everything was extremely hectic, chaotic. I think [the police] overreacted completely, [acting like] the situation was much more than it was," said Pace senior Robert Coulombe, 23. Coulombe, who did not know Henry and claims he was behind his car during the events, said he did not see the shooting but heard the shots after he saw Henry's car pull away slowly "as if he was being asked to leave the fire lane." He told reporters, "They didn't give him a chance to pull over. They could have pursued him in their vehicles. I think they unnecessarily shot someone."

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  • Mel Daly

    It's amusing that you would mention gun violence... I was once standing in the company of a group of police detectives and the subject of gun violence came up and the leader of their group said, "it thins out the population of scumbags" I remember this verbatim because it struck me. Some years later I was with my best friend at his bachelor party his dad and all his uncles are cops from a different police agency and place all together. The subject came up at one point during the evening and doggonit would you believe one of them said exactly those same words verbatim. I will also point out that nearly all of these guys are card carrying NRA members as well as gun freaks. I mean sickos who fetishize this crap and have all kinds of collectible weapons too. I will also mention since you may or may not know that firearms have often been recorded destroyed by the police and then put back out in ciculation on very mean steets as payment to the epicly massive network of secret police informants. But this is off topic. DJ HENRY WAS MURDERED in front of a whole crowd of people. There are police dashcams but they dont exonerate the police's actions thats why they havent been released. We need to disarm the police and scale all salaries and pensions back to 70k or less. We need to establish a criminal threshold for pension disparity. People who can vote themselves payraises always do but they had to have known what they were doing was wrong if retired chief, cappys, lieuies, and sarges are making 4, 5, 10 times what the average citizen in their community makes.

  • ProudLiberal1947

    The adversarial role of the scum of America must be reinforced at every turn. This is to prove to America that the police (hahaha) no longer serve and protect however they do demean, wrongfully pursue and intimidate those they believe should be kept in line. Those people are ANYONE that is Black,brown,Red Yellow or speaks with accent or doesn't speak English the way they think it should be spoken. If you will notice the Activist Judges of the right starting with the Scum Bags on the supreme court and the various judicial districts are working over time to Strip the American Citizen of their rights. Nothing has to be said just a wink and knowing god, the problem is resolved.

    Suggestion every time a cop stops a person twenty people should surround that cop, find out were they live, visit their neighborhoods, remember to laugh wink and nod and keep the video cameras rolling because these Spineless Pukes and Gutless wonders will freak out and when they do let the LAWSUITs flow.

    Remember folks intimidation is a two way street.

    Oh! by the way if you happen to clean their clock use the Cowards in Blue excuse, I felt threatened and I was afraid, keep the cameras rolling

  • kazubes

    Mel Daly, worse commenter than John L???

  • csk

    A 23 year old senior?

  • Mel Daly

    I should also like to comment that there were many squad cars there if they had any video that exonerated the officers they would have released it already. They are deliberately moving slowly so that they can confuse the issue just as they began tasering the crowd and ordering witnesses out of the area at gunpoint immediately after the incident happened so they could whitewash the crimescene as best they could. They handcuffed a man who had been shot and in all probably the football star died horribly with his hands cuffed behind his back at the homecoming party because he was black. REMINDER EVERY SINGLE OFFICER PRESENT THE NIGHT OF THIS BOYS MURDER WILL RETIRE WITH A 6 FIGURE PENSION AND DRAW MILLIONS MORE IN RETIREMENT.

  • jaycjay

    TL;DR.

    See that big key on the keyboard, the one with the word "Enter" on it? It's a good tool.

  • Mel Daly

    The police long ago lost any respect for the public. During the Reagan presidency the right began what has been a 4 decade run up to the orwellian police state we now live in. A state in which the bill of rights is routinely ignored, most arrests are false and where 2 1/2 million of your fellow americans groan in their cages. DOJ stats report 90,000 people were sexully victimized while in the custody of these law enforcement milliionaires last year alone. At least 10 million families have been driven bankrupt directly by the legal system and entire swaths of the countryside are broke due to an inability to pay massive unfunded pensions. It has become abhorrant that the children and grandchildren of the americans these criminals have brutalized should pay for these crooks to live in abject wealth and comfort. How many working families have to work to support even one retired public servant making in excess of 6 figures? The legal system is completely out of control and everyone knows it. Were not kept safe what we have is roving goon squads out looking for people to arrest at all times. The real problem is litigator-legislators who go to session every year to craft still more layers of junk law that further perpetuate their professions stranglehold on every aspect of our society, our finances, and persons. Their unbridled avarice has led to these abuses and ALL OF US WHO HAVE WATCHED WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THIS COUNTRY AFTER THE 1980S KNOW EXACTLY WHAT THAT IS. WE HAVE NO RIGHTS AND DESPITE A FOUR DECADE SPENDING SPREE AND THE EXPANSION OF POLICE POWERS, PERSONNEL, TECHNOLOGY, AND FINANCES AD NAUSEUM WE ARE LESS SAFE NOW. END POLICE MILLIONAIRES support the commmittee to restore american liberties a non profit groupt that is circulating a petition in the 27 states that have petition referendum processes to salary and pension cap all present and former municipal, county, and state employees at 70,000$ max salary or pension.

  • OSN!

    Media outlets are reporting Danroy was drunk at twice the legal limit. I'm not saying this excuses his being shot, but it might explain actions taken on his part.

  • OSN!

    You've neglected to mention the vicious violent crime wave urban America especially has been living through for at least the past 40 years. At one point NYC was averaging 2000 murders a year! The so-called police state you rant about didn't develop in a vacuum.

  • nicemarmot

    Wasn't there supposed to be surveillance footage that was going to clear all this up and show what really happened?

  • XxSuntoucherxX

    Cue Al Sharpton in 5...4...3...2...

  • jaycjay

    said he did not see the shooting but heard the shots after he saw Henry's car pull away slowly "as if he was being asked to leave the fire lane."

    That makes sense. He looked over his shoulder for oncoming traffic, and seeing that it was clear, he used his turn signal to indicate that he was about to drive, and slowly pulled away as he would when leaving a fire lane. And a cop said, "Hey, I think I'm going to shoot that guy. No reason, I just kind of feel like it."

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