A Ride For Lonnie

WEEKI WACHEE - The day turned out to be a scorcher, but the 400 or so people on motorcycles didn't complain Saturday.

Some of them thought it was a perfect day for a ride.

"Dude, I got all teary-eyed all over again," said Darryl Garman, an assistant chief with the New Port Richey Police Department. "It chokes me up."

Garman is the cousin of the late Lonnie Coburn, a Hernando County Sheriff's deputy who was killed in the line of duty 30 years ago outside a Ridge Manor-area convenience store.

Garman is the vice president of American People Against Cop Killers (APACK). He attended the police academy in June 1978, four months after his cousin's murder.

"He was a contributing influence," he said of Coburn.

Garman is less than a month from retirement.

He was among the hundreds of bikers at Weeki Wachee Saturday - the destination of a 65-minute motorcycle run that began at Sunrise Plaza, located off Cortez Boulevard near Ridge Manor.

There were more than 250 bikes on the road at one time. The line stretched for more than a mile.

Police officers from Tampa and deputies from Hernando, Sumter and Citrus counties led the group. They were followed by members of APACK and the Blue Knights - a motorcycle club comprised of active and retired police officers.

The other motorcyclists followed them. They rode west along Cortez Boulevard, turned on Mondon Hill and traveled along U.S. 41, Snow Memorial Highway, Lake Lindsey Road, Centralia Road and U.S. 19 before stopping at Weeki Wachee Springs.

Jerry Jennings, president of APACK, was getting hugs from people minutes after the park's parking lot filled up with chrome-wheeled bikes.

"Is this a motorcycle ride or what?" he asked several people as they lined up to congratulate him.

Jennings, who retired from the Hernando County Sheriff's Office, was Coburn's close friend. He had "Hutch" stitched onto his leather vest. Coburn, he said, was known as "Starsky."

For years, he would honor his friend by visiting his gravesite. He decided a couple years ago to do more.

"We like motorcycles," he said of some of his fellow deputies. "We decided to have a motorcycle run in Lonnie's honor."

They aim to have two rides per year. In April, they rode through Tallahassee. They will choose different places for every run and will honor different officers and deputies each time.

Coburn was in the minds of a lot of people who rode Saturday, but the ride was dedicated to Tampa detectives Rickey Childers and Randy Bell and Trooper James Crooks, who were killed 10 years ago.

The detectives were escorting Hank Earl Carr in their cruiser. He was a convicted felon with a history of violence, but they didn't know that. The suspect gave them a fake name.

Carr unlocked his handcuffs, stole Childers' firearm and killed them both.

During a pursuit in Pasco County, he shot and killed Crooks.

Carr took his own life while bunkered inside a gas station in Hernando County.

Grady Irvin was among the motorcyclists who took part in Saturday's APACK. He looked at the photographs of the three men and shook his head.

He was asked whether he knew them.

"No, but you don't wish that on your enemy," he said.

The cost to participate Saturday was $20 per rider. Half of that went toward admission to Weeki Wachee. The other half went toward APACK and its scholarship fund, which was created in Coburn's honor.