Law Enforcement Carries the Torch in Their Annual Run for Special Olympics

This Friday, police departments from all over Bergen County will participate in the annual Torch Run that raises money for the New Jersey Special Olympics. 

The run was started by Steven Vitale, a Port Authority Police Officer who was killed in a road rage incident in 2006 at the age of 55. In 1982, Vitale, also a student of photography, was asked to take photos for a Special Olympics competition.

That experience moved him so deeply, that he asked other police officers to volunteer their time with him to help at the Special Olympics Summer Games. And so the Torch Run was born in 1984 to raise awareness and money for New Jersey's Special Olympics.

The original course went from Liberty State Park in Jersey City to Rutgers Stadium in New Brunswick, running 43 miles through eight towns and raising $7,000. From that first year, the Torch Run took off and it now raises over $2 million dollars with more than 3000 police officers statewide running or volunteering in events to raise money for the annual summer games of the New Jersey Special Olympics.

New Milford's Police Chief Frank Papapietro will be hitting the pavement in this year's the Torch Run as it makes its way from Bergenfield to New Milford.