I feel the need to brag on our local police. This is from the SJ Mercury News:
San Jose police board bikes to aid walkers
OFFICERS IN PINK BOOST SPIRITS AT ANNUAL BREAST CANCER WALK
By Kimra McPherson
Mercury News
Cops don't often wear pink.
But more than 30 San Jose police officers pulled on matching pale pink polo shirts this weekend to escort Avon Walk for Breast Cancer participants through 39.3 miles of San Francisco streets.
With stereos strapped to their bicycles and silly jokes at the ready, the officers cleared paths for the walkers along narrow streets and kept them from giving up when the hills got steep.
``They encourage us when there's no one there,'' said Edie Ortmann, a five-year walker from Fremont.
More than 2,300 walkers from around the country raised $5.4 million for breast cancer research at this year's walk, which started in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park on Saturday morning, wound through Sausalito and Mill Valley, and ended back at the park Sunday afternoon. The funds support breast cancer research and outreach programs across the country, including Valley Medical Center, which this year received a $250,000 grant to help purchase state-of-the-art radiation equipment for its new cancer center.
The San Jose police officers' involvement started in 2000 with a simple request to escort the walkers through San Jose, where the race then started. It was only supposed to be a few miles, Capt. Andy Galea said. But the officers and walkers quickly formed a bond that carried them across the San Mateo County line.
``Ultimately, we ended up going all the way to San Francisco,'' Galea said.
The walk has been their event ever since -- even when organizers changed the route so the walk no longer passed through San Jose.
``There's no other city where the police department unites like they do,'' said Karen Borkowsky, program director for the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer, which holds events in eight cities around the country. ``They ride up these San Francisco hills with music on their bikes and really encourage our walkers to walk every last mile.''
Officers said the walk lets them prove they do more than break up parties and hand out parking tickets.
``The other 363 days of the year, we're not that cool,'' Officer Jeff Moore said.
But for many, the ride is also personal. Officers talked about losing their grandmothers, mothers and friends to breast cancer. One taped a photo of his mother to the back of his bike, with the words ``Why I Ride'' written underneath.
Sgt. Mike Sullivan, who coordinates police participation as the sergeant in charge of the department's bike team, is the son of a breast cancer survivor. He remembers feeling helpless when his mother got diagnosed -- ``the big, tough cop didn't know what to do'' -- and wondering how he could make a difference.
``These ladies give me so much courage and so much hope,'' he said.
Now, Sullivan is legendary for the stereo he straps to the back of his bike, blaring his favorite tunes -- mostly U2 and Queen -- and a walking mix CD that includes ``Walk Like an Egyptian,'' ``Walking on the Sun'' and the Proclaimers song with the chorus ``I would walk 500 miles.''
The department's involvement doesn't stop at the end of the walk. A group of officers travels each year to San Diego, where former San Jose Chief Bill Lansdowne now works, to escort participants in the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation's three-day walk. And two years ago, the officers started selling a ``Why We Walk'' calendar with their photos and stories. So far, Sullivan said, calendar sales have netted $10,000 for breast cancer research.
The calendar also provided some eye candy for walkers, some of whom gawked at the photos as if they were rock star pinups from Tiger Beat.
``They're our boyfriends,'' said Martha Elder Domont, a San Anselmo cancer survivor with a junior officer sticker on the bill of her pink baseball cap. The officers have serenaded the women with karaoke at Wellness Village, the dinner stop on the walk's first night, Domont said. The women have sung back. And one year, when the officers walked in, all of the women pelted them with underwear.
At a lunch stop Sunday afternoon atop Alta Plaza, four miles from the finish line, the police were hot property. Some had decorated their bikes with pink streamers and feather boas. Others wore pins that said ``breast man.'' All posed for countless pictures and passed out silver junior officer badges.
``We are all -- numerous times -- junior officers,'' said Angela Stratton, a Livermore resident who showed off a sticker for each of the four years she'd walked the route.
``And I'm a Mountie!'' said her friend Angela Roach, displaying a sticker from the department's horse division.
At the end of the walk, officers took over a corner at Golden Gate Park, greeting the walkers with high-fives and hugs. When they biked onto Speedway Meadow, the crowd erupted in cheers.
``In police work, you deal with a lot of negative things, a lot of tragedies,'' Galea said. ``But you just leave here feeling wonderful.''
