Chesapeake crossing guard hit by truck, killed at work

CHESAPEAKE

She called her Curly Sue.

Every day, school crossing guard Lovette Person would greet the girl with blonde frizzy hair as she walked across the street.

"Hello, Curly Sue," Person would say to 8-year-old Laynee Dardon from across the street.

"She was very sweet, and every morning, I would give her a hug," said Laynee, pressed against her grandfather's side on Monday.

The girl was sobbing because her favorite school crossing guard had been struck by a pickup Monday morning in Western Branch and later died.

Laynee was already inside the school when the accident occurred at 7:30 a.m.

She didn't see the red Toyota Tundra driving east into the sun on Terry Drive at Brittany Way when it hit the 35-year-old civilian employee of the Police Department.

The driver of the pickup told police the sun's glare was so bright she could not see clearly, Chesapeake police Lt. Johnny Day said.

"We had witnesses who were behind her say they had glare in their windows," he said, adding he saw video from a police officer headed in that direction that also showed glare from the sun.

Day said he didn't think the driver, whose name was not released, would be charged. Police ruled out speeding, alcohol and texting as factors in the accident.

Person died at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital.

Person was struck across the street from Western Branch Intermediate School, which is next to Western Branch Primary and down the street from the high school. Division spokesman Tom Cupitt said he doesn't remember an incident like this in the 20 years since he became spokesman, and he said counselors would be available to students who needed to talk to someone.

Person's husband, Torron Person, stopped by the crosswalk Monday afternoon to pick up his wife's car and her dog, a gray-and-white Shih Tzu named Gizmo.

He said his wife of seven years loved her job because she enjoyed being around children.

"This was her favorite spot," her husband said of the crossing Person had worked since the beginning of the school year. She had been a crossing guard for a little more than a year.

"I used to warn her about it - people not paying attention," he said. "You have to make sure you take care of yourself."

Before she went to work that day, she dropped off their 16-year-old son, Torron Person Jr., at Salem High School in Virginia Beach.

Both her husband and son said she was a comedian because she was always smiling and cracking jokes.

"She loved people," her son said. "She loved this job. She was just doing her job."

On Monday afternoon, a police officer worked the crosswalk where Person normally would have been.

Amy Jebson, who lives in the neighborhood across the street from where Person was killed, picked up her two sons in the afternoon.

"She'd hug the kids," Jebson said of Person. "She was very friendly. She would fuss at the cars going too fast and told them to slow down. She was a good crossing guard."

Another resident, Ron Cutchins, described Person's job as an orchestra because she had to coordinate buses driving out of the driveway at the intermediate school, stop cars on Terry Drive and help kids get across the street safely.

"She takes care of that and makes sense of it," he said after picking up his daughter.

Pilot writer Elisabeth Hulette contributed to this report.

Veronica Gonzalez, (757) 222-5208, veronica.gonzalez@pilotonline.com