COUNTYWIDE : Police Fire Up Support for Special Event

By CAROLYN KUSKY

June 22, 1990 12 AM PT

A relay team of 20 law enforcement officers carried a torch from one end of the county to the other Thursday to demonstrate their support for this weekend’s Special Olympics Summer Games in Los Angeles.

Members of the Ventura and Oxnard police departments, the county district attorney’s office and the Sheriff’s Department passed an Olympian torch along a 42-mile route beginning at the Emma Wood State Beach in Ventura and ending at the Los Angles County line near Leo Carrillo State Beach.

The 17-inch torch will be carried into Drake Stadium at UCLA on Friday for the opening ceremonies of the 22nd annual Special Olympics Summer Games. The statewide competition will be held Saturday and Sunday.

“I was pooped,” said Ventura Detective Bill Ragsdale after carrying the torch for two miles through downtown Ventura.

“But it was worth it. I felt very proud to be out there running.”

More than 500 runners have participated in the statewide torch relay, which began Monday on the steps of the State Capitol in Sacramento, said Stephen Hartmann, spokesman for the Ventura Parks and Recreation Department, which coordinated the Ventura County portion of the run.

Braden McKinley, the district attorney’s chief investigator, carried the torch more than a mile from Emma Wood State Beach to Ventura City Hall. On the City Hall steps, he was greeted with a hug from a Special Olympics participant.

“It was just exhilarating,” McKinley said.

Local participants hope the fifth annual Law Enforcement Torch Run will help generate interest in the Special Olympics, a sports competition for mentally retarded children and adults.

Nationwide, more than $2.5 million is expected to be raised for the Special Olympics during torch run events by law enforcement officers who collect pledges for the miles they run, Hartmann said.

But officers in Ventura County said they did not ask for donations because they have not done so in the past. Instead, they said they wanted to emphasize publicizing the event.

“We just wanted to get the word out,” Hartmann said. “Maybe next year we’ll focus on some fund-raising.”