Valor Awards
NJ State PBA Local of the Year
Jamesburg Local 389
Jamesburg Local 389 members accept the PBA Local of the Year award with Mimi Raja( third from right).
All for Mikayla and all because of Mikayla n BY MITCHELL KRUGEL
One act of random kindness set the 121st Annual NJ State PBA Valor Awards into a viral frenzy. One act that begat another and another and another, and it’ s still going even beyond the moment when the Harrah’ s ballroom erupted over hearing that Jamesburg Local 389 had been named NJ State PBA Local of the Year.
The one act that began it all, of course, came on April 21 when 8-year-old Mikayla Raji anonymously bought lunch for Jamesburg Patrolman Joseph Quinn at Helmetta’ s Villa Borghese, a local pizza place. When Quinn reported what had happened, Jamesburg deployed some detective work that revealed the perpetrator was a little girl whose father, Perth Amboy Local 13 Officer Thomas Raji, was killed by a drunk driver in the line of duty on Aug. 22, 2008, seven months before she was born. Local 389 member Rich Bruno posted the findings on Facebook on April 24, and it became the story that brought law enforcement its most illustrious recognition. In the world.
Let’ s do a little social media math. That Facebook post was immediately shared nearly 1,200 times that day. If each of those shares went to a person with at least 500 friends( probably a low estimate by about 50 percent), then more than 600,000 people got wind of this story. In one day.
The story has only grown, with more than a dozen major media outlets picking it up, including the cover story of the May issue of NJ Cops Magazine. Jamesburg started a GoFundMe page that will raise $ 20,000 for Mikayla to use for her education. On July 25, Quinn and Bruno accompanied Mikayla and her mother, Mimi, a retired Perth Amboy Local 13 member, to a Yankees
game, where she met 2017 American League Rookie of the Year Aaron Judge and then-manager Joe Girardi. She even threw out the ceremonial first pitch.
“ The way the story came out and the way it made us all shine,” reasoned President Pat Colligan for why the State PBA selected Jamesburg for the honor.“ Generally, a good cop story doesn’ t sell. But here’ s a story that was done without the media by the average person. Jamesburg was gracious to tell the story and hundreds of thousands of people smiled about it. We should all be doing that.”
Local 389 represents a 14-person department, 14 big brothers to Mikayla. What remains a wonder to all of them, and has become great uniting source of pride, is how a small department can do something that turned out so big.
“ We’ re a close-knit group. We all enjoy helping and being supportive of each other. It’ s something we all have instilled in us,” explained Local 389 State Delegate Steve Burzachiello after he led his contingent up to accept the Local of the Year recognition. What they accomplished in what has been really an ongoing effort to honor Mikayla, Mimi and Tommy has not been lost on this band of brothers.
“ When you see so many bad things going on in the world and somebody is so generous, it makes you feel really good about things again,” Burzachiello continued.“ Things you don’ t expect to happen can really happen.”
One of those things continued the trajectory of impact that Mikayla and Local 389 combined to make. On June 14, Bruno escorted Mikayla and Mimi to the Mothers Against Drunk Driving
CONTINUED ON PAGE 40 www. njcopsmagazine. com ■ DECEMBER 2017 39