Juvenile Officer Charles H. Hurt

Charles H. Hurt

Juvenile Officer Charles Hurt was shot and killed as he and another officer were searching for students who were playing hooky from school in Scotlandville.

They were searching a wooded area at a community center near the high school when a 17-year-old student shot him once with a .22 caliber pistol. The subject was apprehended the next day.

The suspect was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. The Louisiana Supreme Court awarded him a new trial in 1969, and he was again convicted of murder, but this time sentenced to life. In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that mandatory sentencing of life without parole for juvenile offenders was a “cruel and unusual” punishment. In 2016, the Supreme Court took up the suspect's case and extended their decision on such sentences to people already in prison. He was denied parole on October 12, 2019. He had been Louisiana's longest-serving inmate until he was granted parole on November 17, 2021.

Officer Hurt had served with the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office for 17 months. He was survived by his wife and three children.