A man who was drunk when he crashed his pickup truck into a Fourth of July barbecue in Lower Manhattan in 2024, killing four people, was sentenced to 24 years to life in prison on Friday.
The man, Daniel Hyden, who is a self-described wellness advocate and substance abuse counselor, had been kicked out of a bar before he lost control of his Ford F-150 pickup truck, rammed through a fence at Corlears Hook Park on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and crushed the victims.
In the days after, four people died: Lucille Pinkney, 59; her son Herman Pinkney, 38; Emily Ruiz, 30; and Ana Morel, 43. Seven others were injured in the crash.
On Friday, the families of those who were killed and people who were injured read victim impact statements in court and spoke of the physical and emotional pain that has permeated their lives.
Starkema Lewis, Ms. Pinkney’s niece and Mr. Pinkney’s cousin, said Mr. Hyden’s “reckless and selfish actions” turned what should have been a celebration into a tragedy. She added that Mr. Hayden was aware of the risks associated with his actions as a substance abuse counselor who had written about his history with addiction and had past citations for driving under the influence.
“Daniel made the conscious choice to drink and drive, fully aware of the risk,” Ms. Lewis said in court. “Fully aware of the devastation it would cause.”
Mr. Hyden was convicted in November after a two-week, nonjury trial. Justice April A. Newbauer found him guilty on 12 counts, including second-degree murder and aggravated assault.
Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, said in a statement on Friday that while “this prison sentence will not reverse the fatalities, injuries, and trauma, I hope this sentencing brings a measure of comfort for those who were impacted by this mass casualty event.”
In his own statements, Mr. Hyden apologized to the families, the victims and everyone who had to process the “carnage” of the crash, which he referred to as an accident.
“I’m processing how deeply disturbed and deeply hurt I was and still am,” he told the courtroom. “And I’m still processing the amount of people I hurt with my actions.”
In August of that year, he said, he was scheduled to read his own victim impact statement at the sentencing of a man who killed his sister in a hit-and-run crash in New Jersey in 2021. Instead, he was at Rikers Island complex being charged in his own case.
“What kind of human being would put other human beings through the same thing he was going through,” he said in court.
The barbecue picnic in the crowded park had featured hours of music and dancing.
During the trial, Liliana Ruiz, the mother of Emily Ruiz, recalled that she had just left to run to her nearby apartment to use the bathroom, leaving her adult daughter and grandson behind. She returned just before 9 p.m. and heard something that, at first, sounded like fireworks, she said. Then there were screams.
Mr. Ruiz said she spotted her grandson standing alone, and as she looked around in a panic, she saw a pickup truck on the bleachers where her group had been sitting. She ran toward the truck, she said, and saw her daughter pinned underneath.
On Friday, Ms. Ruiz said she had difficulty distilling how she has felt since that moment into a two- or three-minute statement in court.
She said she struggled to write about the “gut-wrenching” feeling of when she “had to look into my daughter’s eyes as she laid under the truck gasping for air that would never arrive to her lungs.”
For years, leaders in New York City have tried to curtail traffic deaths. An initiative called Vision Zero was launched in 2014 by former Mayor Bill de Blasio to reduce fatalities to nothing.
In 2024, the year of the Lower East Side crash, the city recorded 251 fatalities and 51,555 injuries, a decline of about 8 percent from the year before. In 2025, fatalities fell to 206 and injuries to 47,183, according to city data.
Hurubie Meko is a Times reporter covering criminal justice in New York, with a focus on the Manhattan district attorney’s office and state courts.
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