Danroy "DJ" Henry Jr. was a 20-year-old Pace University football player who was shot dead by police outside a New York State bar last October. Tonight at 11 p.m., BET's Weekly With Ed Gordon is looking at the case through firsthand accounts of his parents, Danroy and Angela Henry; key eyewitness and shooting survivor Brandon Cox and his parents; and Harvard Law professor and attorney Charles Ogletree, who represents the Cox family.
The show also features cell phone camera video of the aftermath of the shooting, police press conferences and DJ's memorial "homecoming" on what would have been his 21st birthday before thousands of mourners at the Boston Convention Center.
According to an announcement by BET:
DJ’s father recalls the last moments with his son, "My last words to my son were, 'I love you.' His last words to me were, 'I love you too.' The last thing we did together was embrace. I have no regrets. That's how we lived our life. What does haunt me is what he saw. I'm haunted by the knowledge of his last seconds."
And Professor Ogletree sets out to seek justice on the case, "It's not a black kid who is killed by a police officer. That's too opaque a picture of it. This is DJ, a fun-loving kid, a hardworking kid who lost his life. There’s nothing that we can do to help the Henry’s understand that. But we can say that this is a case that won’t go away. Everything is going to be scrutinized unlike any case we've ever done before because the tragedy is great and the miscarriage of justice is possible. And we’re not gonna let it happen."
Henry's family has filed a $120 million wrongful death lawsuit against police in two Westchester county towns. Cops say they only fired after the young man struck two officers with a car as he tried to flee the scene of a brawl outside the bar. However, Cox has said that the first shots were fired before any officer was hit and that Henry drove off only after being told to move by officers.
A couple of clips from the show are below.
The parents of DJ Henry learn police killed their son.
Shooting survivor Brandon Cox’s first television interview.
The traumatic aftermath of police shooting of DJ Henry caught on tape.
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Sheryl Huggins Salomon is senior editor-at-large of The Root and a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based editorial consultant. Follow her on Twitter.