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My father, Tom Dwyer, was Bill Hyde's partner through the fifties and was ultimately promoted to Captain and, then, Chief. I still remember the late hour he was called and told of the shooting. He raced to the scene, to find his old partner -- and lifelong friend -- dead. Bill Hyde never had a chance, but, as John Hathaway, who was Bill's partner that night, told my father, Bill shouted a warning to him as he went down -- his last words. Bill Hyde was a wonderful father and husband. I was a friend of his daughter and can never forget the devastated family who continued on after his death.
Bill left his fellow officers with an almost unlimited store of wonderful and funny stories (the kind of stories all cops share to end of their days, and tell again and again). Years after Bill's death, my father noticed an old man who kept looking and looking at him. He finally approached. "You don't recognize me, do you?" he said. "No," dad responded. "I'm the man who shot that young officer. I want to tell you that there has not been a night that I have gone to bed that I have not seen that young man's face. I'm sorry." He didn't serve a life sentence, at least not in prison. God bless you, Mr. Hyde, and God forgive us all.
Tom Dwyer
Son of a fellow officer
October 19, 2011
