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Police Unity Tour: Arlington Officers Ride to Remember
From May 10 to May 12, a wave of blue bicycle jerseys will swell inland from Portsmouth, Virginia to Washington, D.C. Hundreds of law enforcement officers will pedal the 250 mile route, including a five-member team from Arlington, as part of the 2008 Police Unity Tour. The annual event honors officers who have died in the line of duty and raises money for the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF).
“I chose to participate because it is my personal way of paying respect to those officers who gave their lives for the betterment of their communities,” says Corporal Bethany LeFrancois. “Simply, it is the least I can do to honor fallen police officers.”
Corporal LeFrancois has been training for months for the arduous ride. But she says improving her stamina and strength doesn’t completely prepare her for challenge.
“The hardest part of the Tour is knowing that I am riding in someone’s memory; that there is a family without a loved one, that a fellow brother or sister was killed in the line of duty. It pains me to know that so many police officers have paid the ultimate sacrifice.”
Corporal Tom Jessup agrees. “Physically the ride is demanding of course. I think it is also emotionally taxing. When you ride next to the spouse or child of a surviving law enforcement officer and listen to their story of what brought them to the ride, well that just pulls at your heart. I can't imagine what they are going through. I do know that if something happened to me, my family would be taken care of by the same people I am riding next to.”
According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF), 181 officers were killed nationwide in 2007, a 20 percent increase from the year before. The increase is alarming and it gives the Arlington officers even more incentive to participate in this year’s Police Unity Tour.
“We don’t complete the ride for any sense of recognition,” says Cpl. Jessup. “We do it to draw attention to those officers that were killed in the line of duty so the public will realize that we go out every day and put our lives on the line because it’s what we do.”
Since its inception in 1997, the Police Unity Tour has raised a total of $4.3 million dollars for the NLEOMF and its latest project, the National Law Enforcement Museum. The team from Arlington raised more than $6,000 dollars last year and has contributed more than $30,000 over the past four years.
They've earned that money by testing their own limits. "Each day of the Tour, we are out there for 6-8 hours," says Arlington Detective John Donaggio, another Tour veteran. "The Tour is definitely an endurance event. Essentially three 90-mile rides one after another."
But Donaggio says the hardwork pays off immediately. "Riding into the Memorial on the last day. Thousands of survivors, fellow officers and citizens give us a hero's welcome when we ride into the Memorial. When we meet the survivors of the fallen officer we ride in honor of, the emotion and gratitude they express to us for honoring their son, sister, mother, uncle... is definitely the proudest and best part of the ride for me."
This year, Detective Donaggio, Cpl. Jessup, and Cpl. LeFrancois will be joined on the Tour by two Arlington Auxiliary Police Officers, Eric
Bonetti and Alex Yesnik. The officers will train and ride on their own time and provide their own equipment and supplies for the trip. The public can help sponsor them online at www.firstgiving.com/ACPD .
The ride takes place at the beginning of National Police Week, which honors the service and sacrifice of all law enforcement officers. For more information about the Police Unity Tour-Virginia Chapter or the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, please visit their websites at www.NLEOMF.org and www.PoliceUnityTour4.org .
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