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Special officer mourned by many

Family and friends remember Glenn Hurst as a hard-to-fool nature lover with a knack for working out puzzles - criminal or otherwise.

By MICHAEL KRUSE
Published April 29, 2006

BROOKSVILLE - Glenn Hurst, the investigator at the State Attorney's Office who died suddenly this week, was remembered Friday as a pilot, a biker, a diver, a fisherman, an accomplished mechanic, a loyal friend, and a tough and tender cop.

Mr. Hurst died of a heart attack early Monday morning. He was 50.

Friends, family members and co-workers said this week in interviews and Friday morning at a standing-room-only service at the downtown First United Methodist Church that he was resourceful, dependable, aggressive and competitive yet compassionate. The man they all called Piggy, they said, was an active lover of the outdoors with able, calloused hands who also had the sort of sixth-sense street smarts that seemed to separate him throughout his long career in law enforcement.

He could make quick and accurate reads on people and places and build a boat motor out of spare parts.

No matter where he was, in the office, out on a job or out on the gulf on his 34-foot, twin-engine boat, he put stuff together. He made things fit.

"When some people see three things, they see three things," sister Tammy Fincher said Thursday night. "He'd see three things and put them into one."

"He could almost just look at somebody and say that guy's up to no good," Chief Assistant State Attorney Ric Ridgway said from his Ocala office.

Bruce Carney is a Crystal River attorney who was best friends with Mr. Hurst. Mr. Hurst was in his wedding and was the godfather of his son. "He was a teacher," Carney told everybody at Friday's service, "and I was one of his students."

Mr. Hurst was born in Lowell, Mass., and grew up in Seminole in Pinellas County.

He was a police officer in Ocala starting in 1978 and became an investigator in the Brooksville branch of the 5th Circuit State Attorney's Office in 1990. He was the five-county circuit's lead firearms instructor and always was a key part of the prosecution of high-profile cases involving fraud and exploitation of the elderly.

He was one of only 10 investigators in the circuit and the only one who carried a ticket book in his car. In January 2004, he pulled over a sport utility vehicle in Spring Hill that was scattering trash along State Road 50 and discovered a stash of stolen DVDs, video games and clothes - putting an end to a shoplifting spree.

"Unbelievable man," Assistant State Attorney Don Barbee said Thursday after court. "And a great cop."

"He had an overall knowledge of the community and about what makes people tick," Assistant State Attorney Lisa Herndon said this week.

"He wasn't cocky, or arrogant, or mouthy," Assistant State Attorney Rob Lewis said. "But you knew he meant business."

Mr. Hurst gave keys to his house to his friends. He lived in Hernando Beach and let Ridgway keep his boat docked there.

He restored Volkswagen Beetles, and had a big blue and white diesel Ford F350 pickup truck, a red Camaro and a Harley he kept in his living room. He owned his own tow truck.

In the last couple years, he had lost some weight, and was biking regularly and was playing tennis on his lunch break. Last Wednesday and Thursday evenings, Ridgway stayed at Hernando Beach, and they ate salad and Lean Cuisine dinners. There was some history of heart attacks in the Hurst family.

The cell phone calls about Hurst's heart attack started to go around by 7:30 Monday morning. Everybody knew by 9.

That night, Barbee, who became close friends with Mr. Hurst after joining the Brooksville office in late 2002, picked up a six pack of Michelob Light on his way home. It was Mr. Hurst's beer of choice. Barbee sat in his pool and looked up at the stars.

On Thursday, after the crowded viewing at Merritt Funeral Home in Spring Hill, Irene Hurst said: "Being a mother, you know he's a good boy, but these grown men, these judges, police officers - they think the world of him. Just everybody.

"They came up and introduced themselves," she said.

Courtrooms were closed for the service Friday.

The State Attorney's Office was closed all day.

There were men and women at the service in suits and starched-stiff uniforms with shiny pins and badges, and from the state attorney's offices throughout the circuit, and from judges' chambers and law offices all over the North Suncoast.

Glenn Hurst is survived by his mother, his father and his daughter, a brother and two sisters, and nieces and nephews and aunts and uncles.

At the end of the service, people walked slowly out of the church and into the warm, spring sun. There was a 21-gun salute. Big tough men who prosecute and protect wiped their eyes.

Michael Kruse can be reached at mkruse@sptimes.com or 352 848-1434.

[Last modified April 29, 2006, 01:17:17]