Remembrance Ride

The names of the dead rode with the living Tuesday as Ventura County’s police officers paid tribute to slain colleagues in a relay ride from town to town astride a fleet of bicycles.

They rolled down farm roads and city streets, crisscrossing the county from Simi Valley to Ojai and carrying three gold-colored flashlights that bear the names of the 150 California law officers killed in the line of duty since 1987.

The riders formed a link in a statewide tribute: The flashlights are to land in Sacramento by May 9 after passing through every California town that has lost an officer in the past 10 years.

Along the way, the riders found support from strangers, strength in each other and a sense of affirmation that their fellow officers had neither died in vain nor been forgotten.

“When we lose an officer, there’s always been an outpouring of emotions for him at the funeral,” said Sheriff’s Senior Deputy Joe Galante, who worked for six months with Deputy Peter Aguirre Jr. before the younger officer was shot to death in Meiners Oaks last summer.

“But this is not like a funeral,” Galante said. “It’s a more positive thing. It allows [officers] to pay tribute to people from all over the state. . . . It’s great.”

*

Like his fellow officers from the Thousand Oaks bicycle squad, Galante rode some 50 miles Tuesday in full bicycle uniform, gun belt and bulletproof vest, from the East Valley Sheriff’s Station to the Ojai station where Aguirre last worked.

The ride had begun Tuesday morning in Simi Valley. That department’s bike squad was joined by other officers equipped with no more than borrowed bikes, determination and T-shirts emblazoned with the blacked-out police badge of slain Simi Officer Michael Frederick Clark.

Some riders were not even officers.

On Monday night, cyclists rolled into Simi Valley from Los Angeles County and passed off the flashlights--giving one to Jenifer Clark. Her husband was cut down in August 1995 in a gunfight with a man whose welfare he went to check.

On Tuesday morning, ride founder Sam Knight--a CHP officer from San Bernardino County--strapped the flashlight bearing Clark’s name to his widow’s bike. She hopped on and rode across town with 14 Simi officers.

They pumped their way up Madera Road to Olsen Road, a two-mile-long hill that left them sweating and puffing.

“I’m an ex-smoker, so it made it even harder for me,” Jenifer Clark said after arriving at the Thousand Oaks sheriff’s station and handing off the flashlight. “But I’m glad I did it. I’m proud of everybody.”

Simi Valley Police Capt. Tony Harper--dismounting a bike borrowed from his wife--said he would not have missed the ride.

“When an officer’s killed in the line of duty, they leave a lasting injury on the department, and it’s something you never forget,” he said. “Every time you get an event like this together, it stirs the emotions. You have to participate. Mike left a great legacy in our department, even though he was only here six months.”

*

From Thousand Oaks, the names rolled onward, borne by deputies riding two-by-two.

The pack bombed down the steep Norwegian Grade toward Camarillo in a rush of white uniforms, clicking sprockets and amiable shop talk.

Cops chatted about the latest gear on the market, the drug-addled suspects they had to put up with, the cleverly hidden loot they had rooted out in car searches.

They pedaled and--some said quietly later--they thought a lot about their fallen friends.

Galante recalled of Aguirre: “He was a great kid.”

Then the pack whizzed past Santa Rosa Elementary School, where hundreds of joyfully shrieking and cheering children clutched at the fence and waved flags.

“Man, I thought we were winning the Olympics back there,” Galante said with a grin.

In Camarillo, a dozen more deputies joined the ride.

Among them was Joe Rivas, who scrawled a quote from memory into the logbook that is being signed by all the California officers taking part in the ride: “Life and love have no greater friend than he who would lay down his life for you.”

Rivas called the ride fantastic.

*

“It sounds kind of corny, but this is our way of bearing the hardships with the families [of the dead officers] and letting them know they’re not alone,” he said. “People have the [misconception] that we are the bad guys. . . . But there is a side that the public doesn’t see. It’s a big family. Everyone here is very close.”

As the officers pedaled on through Camarillo toward Oxnard, people called out. A boy waved from the side of the road. Highway workers saluted. Fruit pickers hollered.

And someone in an Oxnard school bus shouted out an epithet.

“One of our finer students,” a deputy said with a wry smile, then pedaled on.

As the cyclists climbed the steep bridge over Oxnard Boulevard in low gear, Deputy Kevin Donohue’s teammates grabbed onto his belt, playfully hitching a ride until he jammed on his brakes and slipped from their grasp.

Then the riders rolled into Oxnard--the beams of the golden flashlights blazing in salute--and exchanged high-fives with 27 Oxnard Police Department SWAT and bicycle officers who were ready and waiting to carry on.

The sheriff’s team briefly handed off the flashlights: one to Jennifer Jensen, wife of SWAT Officer James Jensen Jr., who was killed in a raid last year, and the other to Pat O’Brien, whose son, Officer James O’Brien, died in a shootout with a gunman in 1993.

The lights then were strapped to Oxnard bikes and the riders moved on, two lines of black- and white-clad officers pumping strong between clear-cut fields where bright arcs of water irrigated crops.

As they climbed the Market Street railroad over-crossing, Jennifer Jensen called out encouragement, her voice crackling through the loudspeaker in the mobile police station that tailed the pack: “Come on guys, let’s go! You can do it!”

Almost as one, the riders stood up on their pedals and pumped faster, powering up over the bridge for an easy cruise to the Ventura CHP office.

The cyclists handed off the flashlights once again--this time in memory of CHP motorcycle officer James O’Connor, who was struck down by an elderly motorist in 1990.

And CHP riders joined the group as it rolled onward down the Ventura Beach Promenade, along the length of Ventura Avenue and up the tree-lined Ojai Trail to the Ojai sheriff’s station, where Aguirre worked.

There, they parked the flashlights beneath the picture of rookie Aguirre, whose death at 26 left behind a widow and young daughter.

*

This morning, deputies plan to saddle up for the long, treacherous ride over Maricopa Highway and down the back side of Pine Mountain toward the Santa Barbara County line, to hand off the names of the dead to the next team in line.

“This is probably the first and last time it’ll happen in California,” said Knight, the ride’s founder.

He is planning a nationwide tribute ride--which should be logistically simpler because many states have only state and county agencies, with fewer fallen officers than the hard-hit urban and suburban departments of California.

But Knight added: “It would be nice if we never had to do it again.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Police Deaths

Following are Ventura County peace officers who have been killed in the line of duty in the past 10 years:

* July 17, 1996: Ventura County Sheriff’s Deputy Peter John Aguirre Jr., 26, shot while responding to a domestic disturbance in Meiners Oaks.

* March 13, 1996: Oxnard Police Officer James R. Jensen Jr., 30, accidentally shot by fellow officer during a raid.

* Aug. 4, 1995: Simi Valley Police Officer Michael F. Clark, 28, shot while investigating a report of man threatening suicide.

* Dec. 2, 1993: Oxnard Police Officer James E. O’Brien, 35, shot in a gunfight with a man who had killed three people and wounded four at an unemployment office.

* Nov. 18, 1990: Ventura-based California Highway Patrol Officer James C. O’Connor, 34, struck on his motorcycle near Santa Ynez by an elderly motorist while returning from a training session.