Cannonball run raising money for families of fallen officers
Three sergeants with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department are collecting patches and paying respects in some of the cities where police officers have been killed in the line of duty this year.
Sgt. John Bannes, Sgt. Jason Hendrix and Sgt. Mike Rude created the inaugural Cannonball Memorial Run for Awareness.This is an almost non-stop 48-hour drive coast-to-coast ending at the National Peace Officer Memorial in Washington D.C.
Along the way they will be stopping in Palm Springs, Phoenix, San Antonio, Dallas and Peach County, Georgia. These communities have had at least one officer killed in the line of duty this year. The sergeants will be collecting patches at the police departments who lost officers. Those patches will be brought to Washington.
“It can be very devastating and not just to the community but also to the surrounding communities that help support that officer and his family,” Bannes said.
The Palm Springs police station was their first stop. Officers Lesley Zerebny and Gil Vega were gunned down in an ambush attack two months ago.
“We are very humbled by their support that they are going to take this on and make this drive all the way to the memorial in D.C.,” said Sgt. William Hutchinson with the Palm Springs Police Department.
The trio is not able to stop at every department who had an officer killed, but several have mailed in patches.
Hendrix was involved in an officer-involved shooting 20 years ago at the Circuit City in Palm Desert. He was shot eight times but survived.
“The way I look at it now, a lot of people say wrong place wrong time, I think i was in the right place at the right time. I have healed from those injuries and have been at work ever since,” Hendrix said.
Hendrix knows how lucky he is after his brush with death, and said recent slayings of people in law enforcement are becoming much too prevalent.
“They are never going to go home their families are never going to see them again, so it has hit home with me,” Hendrix said.
This Cannonball run is being used to raise money for the families of fallen officers through online donations.
You can follow their journey across the country on Facebook and Twitter.
