LAPD Aids Donor Search With 4 Drives

Los Angeles Police Lt. Ron LaRue knew he could count on his colleagues when he made a plea for help for his two ailing grandsons. But he never dreamed the response would be so great.

Faced with the daunting task of finding bone-marrow donors for the boys, LaRue asked co-workers for assistance.

The result: Four donor drives have been scheduled throughout the city this month in an effort to find a match for his grandsons, who are afflicted with a rare immune-system disorder.

“The LAPD is a strong family with a history of supporting its people,” the 37-year veteran officer said.

“I had positive feelings that the idea for a donor drive would take,” LaRue said, but four drives was more than he expected.

The drives will also be used to search for a bone-marrow donor for Michelle Carew, the 18-year-old daughter of Angel coach Rod Carew. Michelle, who has leukemia, has been hospitalized since mid-September.

LAPD Chief Willie L. Williams is expected to hold a news conference Tuesday outside Parker Center to launch the drives and draw attention to the plights of the LaRue and Carew families.

The first donor drive will be held Wednesday outside the Van Nuys State Building, and others will follow at the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, Parker Center in Downtown Los Angeles and the Police Department’s Westchester Recruitment Center in Inglewood.

LaRue’s son Scott and daughter-in-law Theresa have already lost a son to the immune-system disorder, known as X-linked lymphoproliferative disease. One-year-old Layne died last summer.

Since Layne’s death, the family has been desperately searching for marrow donors for 3-year-old Garrett and 6-month-old Blayke, who are afflicted with the same disorder.

Organizers of the drives hope to test as many people as possible because there must be a perfect match in the body chemistry of the donor and transplant recipient, and it’s difficult to find such compatibility. Michelle Carew, whose father is African American, faces a particularly difficult search because there is a shortage of minority donors.

Last month, more than 900 people turned out for a marrow testing drive in Ventura County, where Scott LaRue and his family live. The Alhambra Fire Department, where he works as a paramedic, has scheduled its own drive for Jan. 20.

The boys and their parents are currently visiting relatives in Arizona. Ron LaRue said there is a possibility that if no donor can be found for Blayke, who has almost no immune system at all, he may undergo a relatively new medical procedure in which the umbilical stem from another baby would be used in place of bone marrow.

The outlook for Garrett is not as bright. His grandfather said his immune system is of less than one-third the capacity of normal children, with no match in sight. “There have been some very strong concerns for him,” LaRue said.

LaRue said the goal of the drives is to test 2,000 possible donors, and donations are being accepted to help the family pay for the tests. It will cost $22.50 for each person screened.

The tests will be held Wednesday at the Van Nuys State Building at 6150 Van Nuys Blvd., 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Friday at the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza inside the community meeting room at 4125 S. Crenshaw Blvd., 7:30 a.m. to noon and 2 to 6 p.m.; Jan. 18 at the Parker Center auditorium at 150 N. Los Angeles St. 7:30 a.m. to noon and 2 to 6 p.m.; Jan. 19 at the Westchester Recruitment Center at 5651 Manchester Ave. in Inglewood, 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.

For more information to help the LaRue or Carew families, call (800) 843-2949, ext. 4594, or (800) MARROW2.