New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Ex-chief ’s twin set to lead police
HAMDEN — The careers of Tim and Tom Wydra may eternally confuse future generations.
They were the first twins ever reported to have joined the Hamden Police Department. Now, after Tim Wydra was sworn in as deputy chief at Memorial Town Hall Wednesday and with the current chief slated to retire, they appear poised to be the first twins to lead the department at one time or another.
Thomas “Tom” Wydra headed the department for 12 years, leaving in 2018 for a position with the state Department of Labor.
Tim Wydra was a lieutenant at the time, later making captain. Mayor Lauren Garrett
now has tapped him as the next deputy chief.
When news hit Monday that Chief John Sullivan will retire effective May 16, Garrett said she planned to have Wydra run the department as the town decides on a permanent pick.
Thomas Wydra, who offered opening remarks at his brother’s swearing-in, recalled when the twins joined the Hamden police force in 1993 and a New Haven Register reporter wrote a piece on them.
She asked which one of them would be chief one day, according to Thomas Wydra. They shrugged it off, he said.
Maybe they should not have been so quick to dismiss the idea.
“This is going to sound incredibly biased, but you found the best pick (for deputy police chief),” Thomas Wydra told the crowd assembled for his brother’s swearing-in.
Other family members who attended the ceremony lauded Tim Wydra’s character.
Growing up, Melissa Wydra always saw her father as a “superstar.” He was a role model to her and her brother Brian Wydra, who now is a police officer in West Haven.
“Since I was younger ... seeing him doing what he did — the moment I could be a police officer, that was my numberone goal,” Brian Wydra said.
Though Melissa Wydra did not go into law enforcement, her father has qualities that are important for any good human being to emulate, she said.
“My dad is the most honest person you could ever meet,” she said. “I’m just really proud to be his daughter.”
Brian Wydra said his father always has wanted to make a positive change to his Police Department and now has the chance to do so.
Tim Wydra “brings experience working in every bit of the Police Department,” Garrett said when she introduced him. “I know he will work hard — harder than he ever did — because he told me.”
He worked several years in patrol before joining a community policing unit in the late 1990s, he told the New Haven Register. In that position he organized neighborhood block watch meetings, gave safety talks and engaged in hot-spot policing, he said.
Wydra also was a K-9 handler for five years, he said. He became a detective in 2002 and a lieutenant in 2006.
He enjoys policing because of all the different people officers meet and the new experiences the job brings each day, he said.
In his new position, Wydra hopes to help fill the department’s many vacancies — the number was recently reported to be as high as 15.
“Like a lot of law enforcement agencies — in Connecticut at least — we’re severely short-staffed,” he said. “We seem to have a problem recruiting. Hiring can take awhile, and we have a lot of vacancies.”
Wydra will work with the mayor’s office and police commission to find people who can police with Hamden’s goals in mind, he said.
Given the town’s financial straits, Wydra also said he aims to be mindful of the budget.
But first, he has an urgent matter to attend to — solving Monday’s fatal shooting of 15year-old Elijah Gomez, a Hamden High School student.
The jarring local tragedy was on officials’ minds during Wednesday’s ceremony, when Garrett called a moment of silence for Gomez.
Gomez “was taken from us in a vicious and cowardly act of violence,” Wydra told the crowd assembled at Memorial Town Hall. “He was walking home from school.”
The entire detective division is assigned to the case, Wydra said later.