Henry K. Lee
San Francisco Chronicle
HAYWARD, Calif. — Scott Lunger was a die-hard Oakland A’s fan and ice-cream lover who doted on his two college-age daughters. He slept in his car after his grueling shift as a Hayward police sergeant ended at 2 a.m. so he could play baseball in an over-45 league that started only hours later. He was like a kid in the candy store when a new call came over the police radio.
Those were just some of the memories shared as thousands of police officers, friends and citizens attended Lunger’s funeral Thursday at Oracle Arena in Oakland.
Lunger, 48, of Brentwood was killed July 22 after he pulled over Mark Anthony Estrada, 21, of Oakland at 3:15 a.m. for driving erratically in his 2001 Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck, police said. Without warning, Estrada opened fire, striking Lunger in the head, authorities said.
A procession of police vehicles escorted Lunger’s body from the Chapel of the Chimes mortuary in Hayward to the arena. Mourners were greeted by a giant American flag hoisted by two Hayward Fire Department ladder trucks.
To the strains of “Amazing Grace” played by bagpipers, Lunger’s flag-draped casket was brought into the arena as officers saluted.
Lunger was described as a tenacious warrior, hunter of bad guys and an ardent protector of the community who could sometimes be stubborn.
Hayward Police Chief Diane Urban said Lunger, a 15-year department veteran who had served on the SWAT team and gang task force and as a field training officer, “personified the warrior spirit in everything he did.”
Yet his eagerness to get the bad guys was what endeared him to fellow officers, speakers said.
Coiner Of Words
“Stop being lacksy-daisy!” Lunger once exhorted fellow officers he deemed were just sitting around, acting Sgt. Brian Maloney said as laughter rippled through the arena.
Maloney noted that Lunger made up words that his colleagues dubbed “Lungerisms.”
Hayward police Officer Justin Green, clad in the khaki fatigues of his SWAT uniform, touched Lunger’s casket before taking the podium with his “new brother,” Lunger’s older sibling, Mike Lunger, at his side.
“I will honor him by putting on the uniform and continuing to be the warrior that he was,” Green said.
Lunger’s father, Paul Lunger, choked back tears as he described the slain officer as “my son — and my sunshine.” But he drew laughter when he noted how his son was born with the biggest ears he’d ever seen.
“Your mother and I wondered if you would walk or fly,” said the father, speaking directly to his son’s casket. He said he called his son “Scooter” because he scooted across the floor before learning how to walk.
Saralyn Lunger, 19, and Ashton Lunger, 21, also brought tears to the crowd as they spoke of their father.
“He was the best role model a kid could have,” said Saralyn, who wore her father’s police jacket. “He also showed me what being a bad-ass looks like, both on the baseball diamond and in his uniform.”
Saralyn said her father was never afraid to die and often noted that “dying was a part of life.”
Weeping, she said, “I think that my dad always knew something like this was going to happen. I truly believe that if he had to go, this was the only honorable way for it to happen.”
Ashton Lunger said her father was her “God-given hero.”
“You were my best friend, and no little girl should have to say goodbye to her heroic best friend,” she said. “Our time was far too short, but the memories you gave me are irreplaceable.”
‘Devastating Loss’
U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Dublin, told the crowd, “Although we have lost Scott, his memory can still live on” in the officers he trained.
Still, Swalwell said, Lunger’s death is a “devastating loss.”
Swalwell, a former Alameda County prosecutor who is the son of a police officer and whose two brothers are in law enforcement, said Lunger’s police reports were so thorough that defendants he arrested frequently pleaded guilty.
In his eulogy, Sgt. Phil Divinigracia revealed what led his friend to join law enforcement. When Lunger was 8 years old, an officer in Dublin “rudely interrupted” him and his brother as they were lighting fireworks on the Fourth of July. The officer took the siblings home and told their father not to go hard on them because the officer had already “chewed them out.”
“That made a big impression on Scott,” Divinigracia said. “Dad said from then on he wanted to be a police officer.”
Lunger was honored with a 21-gun salute by an Alameda County sheriff’s office honor guard. A bugler played “Taps.”
After the funeral, eight law-enforcement helicopters flew over the arena, and a second procession escorted Lunger’s casket to the Union Cemetery in Byron for a private ceremony.
Alameda County sheriff’s deputies and California Highway Patrol officers patrolled the streets of Hayward on Thursday to allow Lunger’s colleagues to grieve.
A native of Dublin, Lunger played football at Cal State Chico and worked as an electrician and as a reserve Contra Costa County sheriff’s deputy before joining the Hayward police in 2001.
Estrada, the man accused of the slaying, was shot by an officer backing up Lunger. Estrada fled in his truck but showed up at a hospital and was arrested and charged with murder.
Copyright 2015 the San Francisco Chronicle