POLICE UNITY TOUR 20TH ANNIVERSARY
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Thanks for all the support
Tunnel of memory
Two things were never lost on President Robert
Egbert in the decade and a half since his Chapter 37
first joined the Police Unity Tour:
“One thing I wasn’t prepared for was that the
feeling never ebbed in later years,” he said of what it
meant to him in 2002 during their first ride, just
months following the Sept. 11 attacks. “We all think,
‘There but for the grace of God go I.’”
The other thing is the unique sensation exclusive
to Chapter 37 of riding through the 8,558 feet of the
Holland Tunnel on their way out of New York City to
start the Tour each year.
“After our departure ceremony, everybody mounts
their bikes and we head north on West Street and
through the Holland tunnel,” Egbert directed. “Everybody riding is a grown man or woman, but as soon as
they hit the inside of the tunnel, they’re little kids
yelling and screaming to hear their echoes. It’s something they look forward to each year. Not everybody
gets to ride through that. It’s quite a trip.”
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A Dodge Charger
wrapped in tribute to officers lost
in the line of duty.
The bikes break down.
The roads need to be cleared.
The gear and luggage needs to be hauled from New
Jersey to Washington, D.C. with two or three overnight
stops in between. How does it get there?
When the bikes need repair or the riders need care,
the Unity Tour support staff comes to the rescue. Any
rider who has ever completed the Unity Tour will confirm that nobody can make it without support.
And the Unity Tour support team has grown from a
couple of motorcycles and a van the first few years to an
operation that could move a small country.
“I explain to people: The riders are not going to get
there without support,” submits Brian Murphy, a
retired West Orange Local 25 member and the Tour’s
Director of Support. “Being law enforcement, we have
tried to look at everything we can do to make the ride
safe.”
Murphy has been working support for the past 17 or
18 Tours, and now oversees providing food and water at
every break, handling the luggage, fixing bikes that
break down and the riders who break down due to
fatigue or dehydration. Early on, he set up a van to do
repairs on the side of the road. Now, there is a tractortrailer devoted to doing repairs while the Tour keeps
rolling.
The support team sets the pace with a lead vehicle
that runs behind motorcycles that clear the roads. A
series of vans travel behind to carry riders who need
rest or whose bikes are in repair. Two ambulances also
follow to provide whatever first-aid is needed.
This is the model Murphy has built for Chapter I and
is now pretty much used for all chapters moving nearly
2,400 bikes and riders.
“The second year we started with motors and the
third and fourth year we started bringing more equipment,” Murphy adds. “Our job is to keep a close eye on
everything and everyone to make sure we get to the finish safely.”
Driven
In front of Stephen Petruzzello’s wrapped Mustang, from left, Cliffside Park Sergeant J.D. York,
Stephen’s parents Linda and Ron Petruzzello,
Cliffside Park Captain Anthony Frato (retired)
and Cliffside Park Local 96 State Delegate Sergio
Khanukayev.
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NEW JERSEY COPS
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MAY 2016
Two special cars accompany Unity Tour bikers. Though they don’t go on
patrol, these vehicles that are specially wrapped in tribute to New Jersey officers
killed in the line of duty are nothing if not “police cars.”
The first, a Dodge Charger owned by Beachwood Officer Frank Milello, bears
the faces of Lakewood Officers and Local 71 members Chris Matlosz and William
“Nichie” Preslar; Ocean Gate and Island Heights Local 353 Officer Jason Marles,
Jackson Township Officer and Local 168 member Robert J. Ventura and New Jersey State Trooper Marc Castellano. The message “In Valor There Is Hope” is written on the car’s side panels.
The second, a 2007 Ford Mustang wrapped in an American flag, the logo for
Concerns of Police Survivors (C.O.P.S.) and that of the Police Unity Tour followed
the 2015 Unity Tour in memory of the car’s owner, Cliffside Park Officer Stephen
Petruzzello, who was killed in the line of duty on Dec. 29, 2014.
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