What to Know
- Police in New Jersey started to chase the trucker after his tractor-trailer cab struck a vehicle in Elizabeth.
- The trucker ran a police barricade, where officers shot and wounded him.
- The wounded trucker slammed his cab into an oncoming vehicle, killing one and injuring two others.
The trucker accused of leading police on a pursuit that ended in a fatal head-on crash in New Jersey over the weekend has at least eight social security cards and more than four dozen arrests to his name, according to prosecutors.
Danny Clyde Williams -- who has 10 aliases including Danny Clyde Burnam -- wore a neck brace as his public defender entered a "not guilty" plea to manslaughter and vehicular homicide charges in the chase and crash that left one man dead and two others injured in Elizabeth on July 8.
During the arraignment, prosecutors said Williams has been arrested 55 times and had been convicted of several felonies under his various names, calling his criminal record "abysmal."
Williams was allegedly spotted driving erratically and refused to stop for an officer who later fired a single shot in an attempt to stop the cab.
Prosecutors said that he drove 60 mph on a road with a 25 mph speed limit, drove through a police barricade and hit parked cars before ramming a vehicle head on, instantly killing a male passenger and injuring two other people. One of the survivors suffered serious organ damage.
After he was detained, prosecutors said police noticed the odor of alcohol permeating from Williams.
Local
Williams damaged about a dozen vehicles during the ordeal, police said.
He's being held on $2 million bail, despite a plea from his defender to have the amount to be lowered to $500,000.
