NJ Cops | Page 48

“What these guys go through is utterly amazing. Their presence is inspiring for all of us who ride, and what they do truly honors and celebrates the spirit of the Tour and all of Police Week.” PAT COLLIGAN year, Curtis found that nobody had ridden for Deputy Sheriff William Joseph "Joe" Hudnall, Jr. from Kern County in Northern California. Hudnall was killed when hit head-on by a drunk driver while transporting a prisoner. “I never knew him, but when I got to the memorial somebody introduced me to his widow and his little boy,” Curtis recalled. “I picked up his little boy and told the family we don’t want them to think we will ever forget them.” This is what motivates Chapter 7 to come all this way, and the team has truly added to the infectiousness that drives the Tour. The 300 bicycles have to be taken apart, boxed, loaded on to a tractortrailer – proudly donated by Federal Express - shipped to Jersey, reassembled, and the effort has to be done all over when they arrive in D.C. “When everybody goes off to get a beverage at the Tour comes in, they are all going to pack up their bikes,” Colligan reports. Chapter 7 has invested so much into the Tour that it even purchased a trailer that stays east all year and is set up as a rolling bike shop for the ride. The route is set up to roll through many towns where California officers greet the kids who come to see them and stop at departments with memorials to their fallen officers and lay wreaths there. A support staff rolls ahead to set up break locations every 25 miles that have food and the all-important portable toilets. 48 NEW JERSEY COPS n APRIL 2015 NJ State PBA President Pat Colligan with members of California Chapter 7 at the National Law Enforcement Memorial after completing the 2014 Police Unity Tour. The ride is led by the LAPD motorcycle officers. Budd Van Lines lends a truck and two drivers to move luggage to each stop and to five separate hotels in D.C. And even at 60 years old with 30 years on the job, Curtis says he has no plans of slowing down. He does this for that moment each May when the Tour rolls into the memorial and goosebumps overcome him. And Chapter 7 will continue to do this because traveling across the country means so much to law enforcement officers past and present. “When we start each day of the ride, we tell everybody to remember why they are here, and when they are tired at the end of the day, we tell them to look at their wrist bands, remember the person they are riding for and that keeps us going,” Curtis declared. “When we talk to officers who have never done the Tour, we tell them it will change their lives forever.” It means that much to them. d