THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 30, 1996 TAG: 9601300289
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: Medium: 93 lines
State Sen. Stanley C. Walker recalled after learning of the death of Lewis W. Hurst that the statement most heard about Hurst was:
``That guy's a saint.''
Few of us will ever earn such a rare description. Hurst, who died Saturday, first received that designation during a period of racial tensions in Norfolk.
And those of us who are old enough to remember will never forget when or where it was first applied. Or the grace with which Lewis Hurst overcame the killing of his son.
Even today, despite Hurst's distinguished career of state service, he is remembered for the summer of 1972.
In May of that year, Lewis Hurst commanded the Norfolk Police Department's narcotics squad.
His son, Lewis W. ``Kit'' Hurst Jr., was just 22, a movie-star-handsome young man, engaged to be married, who had chosen to follow his father's footsteps into law enforcement.
The younger Hurst was a bright, popular, athletic patrolman. And those who knew him best remembered his sensitive side. After his tragic death, poems he had written were found among his possessions at the police station.
In May 1972, young Hurst was on a night assignment with a special services squad. Early on a Friday morning, acting on a tip from a police informant, the young officer entered the home of a black couple in the Berkley section of Norfolk.
He had ascended the second-floor stairs and was outside the couple's bedroom when the wife, fearing her house was being burglarized again, picked up a .32-caliber pistol and fired it through the door.
The shot hit the young officer in the chest, killing him.
It was later revealed that the informant had mistakenly given the police the wrong address.
After learning details of his son's death, the shattered Lt. Hurst went to the home of the woman who had fired the fatal bullet. He hugged the surprised woman and asked her to honor the family with her presence at the funeral.
During a tearful statement before a Norfolk judge reviewing charges against the woman, Hurst told the court she was innocent. ``It was a tragic mistake,'' he said. ``I'd rather see my son killed in an accident than gunned down by a hoodlum.''
More than a thousand people attended the funeral. Lillian Jones Davidson, whose shot had killed Hurst's son, graciously attended as well, honoring the father's request.
A few months later, Lt. Hurst made news again. Noting the continued rejection of black officers for membership in the Fraternal Order of Police, he requested that his son's name not be inscribed on the lodge's monument honoring officers killed in the line of duty.
If Lewis W. Hurst was a saint, he wore his halo lightly. Ready with a smile, an earnest listener, he was well-liked by all who knew him.
Sen. Walker, then chairman of the State Crime Commission, named Hurst as its director in 1973. It was a post he held for nine years. ``Everyone liked him, from the governor on down, and they all asked for his advice,'' Walker said. ``He was a born investigator. He could walk into a room and walk out remembering everything in it.
``He had inside knowledge of what was going on inside the prisons because prisoners liked him, even those he had put in there,'' Walker continued. ``Lew would say, `I think there's going to be an uprising in the state prison.' So we'd hold a shake-down. We once found 800 weapons at the old prison on Spring Street in Richmond because of it.''
And when committees were being drawn up, Hurst always insisted there be blacks and women represented, Walker recalled. `` `It's the only way to make the thing work,' he told us. He was right.''
Peter G. Decker Jr. was chairman of the state Corrections Board when Lewis Hurst served on the state Parole Board. Hurst retired as vice chairman of that board in 1994 after 12 years of service.
``I was trying to get the state to release nonviolent offenders in the prisons to make room for more violent ones - before the courts ordered the release of violent offenders because there were no beds for them,'' Decker said.
``Lew always helped,'' he said. ``Everyone else turned a deaf ear at times, but he always understood. He was a wonderful human being.''
Hurst had a distinguished career in service to the commonwealth. But his embrace of the woman who killed his son will never be forgotten by those who witnessed it.
In a significant way, his conduct during that time shaped the future of race relations here. And it exposed - with the stark illumination of a lightning flash - the exceptional character of a police officer. One whose life seemed to expand the human dimension. ILLUSTRATION: After learning details of his son's death in 1972, Lewis W.
Hurst hugged the woman who'd fired the shot and asked her to attend
the funeral.
by CNB