Four Pace Football Players Arrested

Danroy Henry's Car Windshield

Four football players from the Pace University were arrested. The authorities said that one of them was stun-gunned in the chaos after the police shot to death one of their teammates outside a suburban New York bar.

The Mount Pleasant Police Chief, Louis Alagno, declared that one of the players broke a storefront window. The other three did not want to move away from the shooting scene and apparently they were interfering with the medical aid, said the Westchester County police spokesman Kieran O’Leary.

The four arrests followed the death of Danroy Henry, 20, of Easton, Mass. The police officers fired through the windshield of his Nissan Altima. They were called to a disturbance that spilled out of Finnegan’s Grill in Thornwood, 27 miles north of New York City and 1 1/2 miles from the Pace campus in Pleasantville.

The circumstances of the shooting and the killing of Henry early Sunday, just a few hours after the homecoming game, are in dispute. The police said that Henry sped off and hit two officers after a policeman knocked on the car’s window. The father of a passenger from the car denies the fact that an officer was hit and he claims that Henry thought he was just following the instructions from the police.

The amateur video made from after the incident shows an unruly crowd, with people screaming. Also, in the video, it appears that someone is trying to revive a person lying on the ground. Cara Cea, a spokeswoman, said that the school officials are preparing to rent several buses to take the students to the funeral in Massachusetts. The arrangements have not been made public yet. “It seems like the outpouring is just tremendous here,” said Cea.

A call to Henry’s family home was answered by a recording which was asking people who knew Danroy Henry “to let everybody you know, tell every single person, how much of an influence Danny had on you or the good things he did and the person he was. Just let everyone know he’s not the kind of person that they’re going to try to make him out to be.”

Alagno said that Joseph Romanick, of Slidell, La., is charged with third-degree criminal mischief after he broke a window in the shopping center that was containing the bar. O’Leary said that Daniel Parker of Lauderhill, Fla.; Joseph Garcia of Floral Park, N.Y.; and Yves Delpeche of Brooklyn were also charged. The accusations brought to them are disorderly conduct and obstruction. Parker and Delpeche were also charged with resisting arrest, and with Delpeche the police was forced to use a stun gun, said O’Leary. The four are 22 and were released for the moment waiting the November 4 court appearance. The police have no information about their lawyers or if they have a lawyer.

The District Attorney, Janet DiFiore, promised Tuesday to get to the bottom of the case. “We never rush to judgment,” said DiFiore. “In the end we will learn about the exact circumstances and events that led to the tragic death of that young man”, she continued. She was asked whether a police account would carry more weight than a student’s. DiFiore said that that every statement will be “carefully analyzed”. The size of the crowd outside the bar on Sunday was estimated at around 150 people. The district attorney said that every witness with useful information will be approached.

Alagno said that 14 investigators are devoted to the case. There are four investigators from the Mount Pleasant force and 10 investigators from the state police. “They are actively seeking leads and interviewing individuals at several locations,” said the chief. Also, without elaborating, the chief said that some forensic evidence was processed and analyzed. He said that none of the officers involved in the case have never had brutality complaints. The officers who fired at the car were identified as Pleasantville Officer Aaron Hess and Mount Pleasant Officer Ronald Beckley.11