"A Victim of Circumstances"

In the placid Ohio River town of New Albany, Ind. (pop. 32,000) one day last week, a Methodist minister and an Indiana state policeman took time out to celebrate an anniversary: three years before, under the gentle, persistent prodding of the Rev. Robert W. Gingery, 37, burly, hard-boiled Sergeant Marvin Walts, 49, had given up the unequal struggle, and become a member of Gingery's Trinity Methodist Church. To honor the anniversary, Policeman Walts invited his minister to ride with him on a routine inspection of the countryside. Then, at 1:15 p.m., as they cruised along U.S. Highway 31-E -- the main road between Indianapolis and nearby Louisville--there came a call that summoned Policeman Walts to death, and the Rev. Mr. Gingery to the most grinding crisis of his life.

On Second Thought. Over the police radio sounded an all-cars bulletin: moments before, a gunman had held up the bank in nearby Sellersburg, was headed their way. Pulling his cruiser across the highway, Walts began a check of passing cars. Among them was one driven by Louisville Factory Worker William G. Hassett, 25. The minister, seated in the squad car, watched his friend interrogate the driver, saw a scuffle, heard shots.

Gingery knew, as he put it later, "that something awful had happened." As he sat frozen in the seat, Hassett leaped from his car, raced across the road toward the police car with a pistol in each hand, obviously to kill what he thought was another policeman. "My first thought," said Gingery, "was that there's nothing I can do--nothing. He's coming to kill me." But the second thought was stronger: picking up a sawed-off shotgun from the front seat of the car, he worked frantically with the safety catch, released it just as Hassett began to fire through the rear window into the car. The Rev. Mr. Gingery pointed the shotgun at the window and pulled the trigger again and again.

Shakily, the survivor of the gun battle picked up the radio microphone and called State Police headquarters: "This is the Rev. Mr. Gingery. Marvin is shot. I have killed the bank robber."

Accidental Death. When state police arrived, they found Hassett dead behind the squad car. Across the highway was Sergeant Walts, dead with a bullet in his head. Between the two wandered Robert Gingery in a state of shock.

By week's end, however, the quick-thinking clergyman had made his peace with God and with the Fifth Commandment. Said he: "I did not kill the man because I wanted to. I did so because I had to. He had just killed one man, and he was coining to kill me. I was a victim of circumstances. It was an accidental death, just as though someone had deliberately stepped in front of my car. I could have died. But I didn't feel that a dead minister would help."

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