Easley Police Officer Matthew Logan Hare, who was killed in the line of duty on August 2, 2023, was inducted on Wednesday, May 1, 2024 into the South Carolina Law Enforcement Officers Hall of Fame, a division of the South Carolina Department of Public Safety. 

Hare was born in Easley in 2001 and was a football player and 2019 graduate, of Easley High School. He joined the Easley Police Department in October of 2022 and graduated from the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy in March of 2023. 

Following is the account, of Hare’s end of watch, by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Officers Hall of Fame: “During the early morning hours of August 2, 2023, Officer Hare was assisting other officers in the search for a missing and suicidal female. Her cell phone was tracked, and she was located lying on a set of active railroad tracks. The officers on the scene could hear the train approaching and radioed to have it stopped. Officer Hare and another officer began to physically remove her from the tracks as the train approached. They were successful in getting the female off the tracks, but the train struck Officer Hare before he could get clear. Officer Hare did not survive the impact. Officer Hare sacrificed his life to save the life of a woman he had never met.”

Hare is certainly beloved and respected by his community. 

When the Easley YMCA dedicated its new building on March 21, YMCA President and CEO Sid Collins spoke of Hare and about the YMCA’s naming of its multi-purpose room in memory of him. “When we were doing our campaign, part of what we did was naming our rooms, different rooms that donors could select, based on a few criteria. But one room was never selected. For whatever reason, a room was not picked, which I thought was odd, because it’s the room that we serve all of our children in for after school and summer camps…That’s where we have our school age child care, after school and summer camps. Also, we do birthday parties, and family reunions… all kind of things. It really ends up being a community center, if you will. If y’all remember, last year, tragically, one of Easley’s finest lost his life, Matthew Hare, serving in the line of duty. It was really just right up the road, and it was tragic. What a lot of people don’t know is Matthew Hare was a YMCA kid. He was here for about 13 years. And he was a part of the Y family. So, we were heartbroken, and the community had an amazing outpouring of support for him. It was touching what everyone was doing. We wanted to really say, how can we honor him and his legacy and share his story, not just one time, not through an event, but for years to come, and maybe even tie it into the kids. Well, guess which room was never named — our multi-purpose room. So, we made the decision, we brought it up to the Board, and they immediately said, ‘Yes, let’s do this.’ So, we reached out to Matthew’s family, his mother, Ashley, and she was quickly on board. I talked to Chief Liner, Brandon Liner. It is a true honor and a privilege, if you don’t know this, to let y’all know that that room is now the Officer Matthew Hare Multi-Purpose Room….It is a great tribute to him.”