Police Unit y Tour
Sussex County Corrections Local 378
and Sussex County Local 138
Embracing the Tour
The tie that binds Unity Tour riders – or
the band the ties – is the bracelet that they
each wear with the name of a fallen officer.
When he finished his 11th Tour, Sussex
County Corrections Local 378 member
John Bannon displayed an awe-inspiring
bracelet that pushed him through the 300
miles this year. The name on the band:
John Bannon.
“Last year, I was flipping through the
catalogue at the Memorial with names of
the fallen officers,” Bannon explained. “I
found a man named John Bannon. He was
with the New York City Police Department.
His End of Watch was May 27, 1966, the
year after I was born.”
So Officer Bannon started researching
to find Officer Bannon. He learned that
Officer Bannon had a daughter who post-
ed messages to her father through the New
York Concerns of Police Survivors website
every once in a while.
“Notes like, ‘I still miss you, dad.’ Stuff
like that,” Bannon revealed. “So I did a lit-
tle more research. I got a phone number
and left a message with somebody, but
they never got back to me.”
Bannon planned to put the bracelet he
wore this year in an envelope and send it
through his contact to Officer Bannon’s
family.
“Instead of a phone message, they’ll get
something, you know, physical that they
can hold on to,” Bannon added. “I’ll put
my contact information in there and see
what happens.”
Bannon rode with 30 members from Lo-
cal 378 and Sussex County Local 138. The
group has grown from a few – including
retired Local 138 member John Hulse – to
one of the biggest contingents from any
Local, primarily through word of mouth.
Bannon said he
has tried to get
fellow members
to embrace a
simple feeling to keep coming back.
“You get a sense of fulfillment,” Bannon
reasoned. “It’s just one of those things that
if you do it once, you’re going to do it again
and it becomes instilled in you. I’ll be do-
ing it forever.”
Mitchell Krugel
www.njcopsmagazine.com
■ JUNE 2018 37