Duluth PD Sponsoring Honor Ride

Duluth Police officers will be participating in the Operation One Voice Honor Ride this week.

A team of 24 law enforcement officers, firefighters and members of U.S. Special Operations Forces will ride in the 60-mile “leapfrog” bicycling event starting in Virginia Beach, VA, Tuesday, Sept. 4, and ending in Duluth Friday, Sept. 7.

The Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office and Georgia State Patrol will take also part in this year’s Honor Ride, according to a press release. Lt. Bill Stevens, Master Patrol Officer Bobby Johnson and Sgt. Steve Daniels will be riding for the Duluth Police Department, which is sponsoring the event.

“The Honor Ride’s goal is to honor those members of the public safety community that sacrificed their lives on Sept. 11, 2001, and to remember those members of our armed services that now are in harm’s way as a result of that attack on this Nation," said Lt. Stevens, the founder of Operation One Voice Inc., in the press release. The cyclists ride from a specific military branch Special Operations Command to Duluth, he said.

Capt. Barry Milliner and Lt. Jim Casey will represent the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office. The 2012 ride will honor Petty Officer 1st Class Neil Roberts, the first Navy Seal killed in Afghanistan.

The ride begins with Naval Special Warfare Group 2 on Tuesday at Little Creek Naval Base at Virginia Beach. The final leg of the ride gets underway at 7 a.m. Friday at the “Clyde Armory” located at 4800 Atlanta Hwy. in Bogart GA, and end at the . Riders will travel Ga. Hwy. 78 into Loganville and then pick up Ga. Hwy. 20 to Sugarloaf Parkway into Duluth.

“Each year, six bicycles purchased by Operation One Voice Inc. for this event will be donated to a wounded Special Operations Forces member to aid in their fitness and rehab,” Stevens said.