Editor,
My first reaction upon reading the letter by Mario Hernandez was to be furious with him for stating opinions so forcefully when he has clearly made no effort to learn the facts of the case.
Consider this passage: "I also love how no one had any previous knowledge whatsoever of any mental health problems with John Hyde. When the trial rolled around, though, he was conveniently incompetent." It's hard to know where to start in pointing out the factual errors in this paragraph.
That John Hyde has been receiving treatment for mental health problems for decades is a matter of frequently reported public record. That his family sought desperately to get him treatment in the months before the events of that tragic day is also well known to anyone who reads the papers or watches the local news regularly. That the police were sent to his apartment to pick him up for a mental health evaluation has been known since the day after the killings. And there has not been a trial. Hernandez would be well served to choose his examples more wisely.
I've known John Hyde for more than 10 years, and the change in his personality during the last year has been profound and obvious to the most casual observer. It is the severity and the direction of those changes that prompted his family's long and strenuous efforts to get his treatment reviewed. The biggest cause in the delay of that treatment is the poor state of funding for public health care.
As I started this letter, my first reaction was anger toward Hernandez' ignorance, but as I thought more, I became even angrier with the opinion editor. It is profoundly irresponsible to publish statements that are demonstrably wrong without comment. It is the absolute responsibility of the editors and publisher of any public medium to make note of statements made by individuals that are plainly wrong.
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Otherwise, other uninformed readers may be taken in by these inaccuracies. I think apologies are due to the families of those victims of John Hyde's mental illness, and to John's family especially.
Mike Peters
Daily Lobo reader
