A former local news anchor who won a seat in Virginia's House of Delegates said Wednesday that he decided to run after his girlfriend, a reporter at the same Roanoke TV station, was fatally shot during a live broadcast.
"I remember very vividly when I met you," Chris Hurst told CNN "New Day" anchor Chris Cuomo.
"I met you outside of our television station the day after Alison was killed," he continued. "I told people since and I'll tell you and your viewers now that Alison and Adam Ward's death connected me to humanity more than anything else."
Hurst's girlfriend, Alison Parker, and cameraman Adam Ward were killed while filming an interview for WDBJ in August 2015.
Hurst said that the tragedy "connected me to my community, it galvanized me to my community," and that afterwards he thought it was too "emotionally difficult" to stay at the news station.
"It made me want to stay in no place other than in southwest Virginia and Appalachia, but I couldn't stay at the station anymore," he said. "So what could I do that would be a natural progression, to be able to give back to a community, to a people that gave me so much strength, love, prayer and support when I needed it? And this seemed like the right thing to do."
Hurst went on to win the race for Virginia's 12th District with 54.3 percent of the vote. He noted on "New Day" that although his campaign platform included a call to reduce gun violence and his opponent had the support of the National Rifle Association, "we really have not been focused on gun violence in this race at all," adding that he is a gun owner himself.
"This race has been more about education, more about expanding Medicaid . . . This, I think, presents a fantastic opportunity for us to address issues that impact people's lives on a daily basis."
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