The suspected drunken driver involved in a deadly July Fourth incident at a Lower East Side park has an extensive criminal history, including an attack on an addiction counseling trainee and an “operating while intoxicated” bust near the location where a man drove his SUV through a Christmas parade. Daniel Christopher Hyden, 44, allegedly rammed his pickup truck into a crowded park on July Fourth, killing three people and injuring eight others. His violent past was evident in court records, law enforcement sources, and his own writings. Atiba Boyce, an addiction counseling trainee who previously worked with Hyden, told The Post that Hyden attacked him during a class in February 2023. I never really smelled alcohol on his breath when he was teaching, but something was off, I don’t know what it was,” said Boyce. Cops charged Hyden with assault and harassment for the incident.
The NYPD had two other past run-ins with Hyden, both involving assault cases from January 2020 and October 2022 that have since been sealed. Hyden, a substance abuse counselor and self-described “ex-professional addict,” publicly discussed his struggles with addiction. He worked at various locations where he mentored other addicts across the city, such as Montefiore, Lincoln Hospital, and a non-profit called Services for UnderServed. Hyden also penned a book titled “The Sober Addict” in which he alluded to numerous legal issues throughout his life.
In 2015, Hyden was arrested for driving under the influence near Waukesha, Wisconsin, where Darrell Brooks would later plow an SUV through a Christmas parade in 2021, killing six people and injuring over 60 others. The arrest occurred shortly after Milwaukee’s Octoberfest celebration. Hyden’s blood-alcohol content was found to be at 0.13%, over the legal limit of 0.08% in Wisconsin.
Susan Opper, the district attorney for Waukesha County, expressed outrage at the news of the Lower East Side incident and hoped that if Hyden was indeed impaired during the event, he would be held fully accountable. Hyden’s most recent legal trouble before the crash occurred in February when he attacked Boyce at an addiction counseling school in East Harlem. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office did not return a request for information regarding the status of this case.
