SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Before the pandemic hit, a team of Northern California officers were training for the Police Unity Tour, an annual 300-mile bike ride from New Jersey to Washington D.C. honor officers killed in the line of duty.
But because of the pandemic, their trip was canceled, and so were other planned memorials for the fallen in 2020.
"With everything going on with the pandemic, we can't fly, and they also cancel the ride and police week," said Sgt. Pearl Rogers with the San Francisco Police Department. "And, instead, we are looking for a different way to honor our officers."
Rogers came up with the idea to still hold their event, but virtually. They are calling it the Pelounity Tour 2020. They are holding virtual rides and riding on their own time.
"The sacrifice is more. We want to show our support for these families and not forget who is fallen," Rogers said. "The unity tour theme is we ride for those who died and that's what we are doing."
Rogers says 146 officers died in 2019.
In the Sacramento area, there were three — Davis Police Officer Natalie Corona, Sacramento Police Officer Tara O'Sullivan, and El Dorado County Sheriff's Deputy Brian Ishmael.
"It's a very emotional ride for the officers and survivors who ride," Rogers said. "And for us who ride this year with Natalie Corona and Tara O'Sullivan, it's important for us to recognize our local heroes."
This ride is also incredibly important to surviving spouses like Crystal Mitchell who lost her husband Jeffrey Mitchell with Sacramento County Sheriff's Office in 2006.
"It's really hard because everything you look forward to, honoring your officers, it kind of helps you get through your grief when you have that period of time to look forward," Mitchel said. "And knowing all of that has disappeared, and we can't do it — it's unsettling, disappointing and heartbreaking for those who lost in 2019 will not get to experience what line of duty deaths experience. It's really hard."
Mitchell is riding every day in the month of May for fallen officers like her husband.
"If we can ride 300 miles, then 10 miles a day in May to honor our fallen is not anything difficult at all. It’s my privilege and honor as well as anybody else’s," she said.
Follow the conversation on Facebook with Madison Wade.
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