ATTENTION WARRIORS’ WATCH RIDERS PENNSYLVANIA/NEW JERSEY/DELAWARE/MARYLAND/NEW YORK: AFTER-RIDE REPORT, FUNERAL SERVICES FOR PHILADELPHIA HIGHWAY PATROL OFFICER (NOW SGT.) PATRICK MCDONALD

A couple of small things first:

1. If you forwarded the mission email about yesterday’s ride for Pat McDonald to another email list, or if you posted it to some other internet forum, please post/forward this email as well. (Or you can link to it – I will post this email on the front of the Warriors Watch website as well – http://www.warriorswatch.org ).

2. Who I am: This mailing list has grown considerably in just the very recent past, so before reporting on yesterday’s sad event, I want to help you know who it is who is writing here. My name is Wayne Lutz, and I am (among other things) the founder of the Warriors’ Watch riders.

3.  What the WWR is: As many of you had the opportunity to observe for yourself, the Warriors’ Watch Riders is not a motorcycle club, rather it is a national coalition of clubs, individuals and organizations from (currently) 18 states who band together for a common purpose – to combine our forces and numbers to honor our troops. In our philosophy, the definition of “troops” includes our police, firefighters, and other first responders. These men and women put their lives on the line daily for our welfare, just as our military troops do.

Warriors’ Watch has a forum and a website and patches and pins and other identifying items, but we are for all of that a coalition, as was made clear by the huge variety of vest patches in evidence at yesterday’s mission. For that day in that time and for that common purpose, we were ALL “Warriors’ Watch Riders.” Leathernecks MC, Vietnam Vets MC, Second Brigade MC, Christian Riders, Blue Knights, Red Knights, and many others including Patriot Guard and individual independent riders – we were all Warriors’ Watch Riders yesterday, a “brotherhood of riding wheels” as my friend Joe Hanson (PHP) put it, brought together to “watch the back” of warrior Patrick McDonald. That is our purpose, that is our mission, that is what we accomplished. Pat’s father called him a “warrior,” and thought it was very appropriate that a coalition of riders called “Warrior’s Watch” should band together to honor him. So that’s what we did.

It was Joe’s idea, not mine. He rode up to Hulmeville Road in Bensalem and looked at the route that the funeral procession was to take. Pat McDonald was a brother biker, and we felt that a fitting tribute would be to line that route with a corridor of “wheels” through which Patrick’s last ride could pass. Joe calculated that to line the road on both sides would take one thousand wheels.

Joe needed to be sure that this was all approved by the police brass. It was already Saturday night when we discussed this on the phone. He contacted the funeral planner, who contacted his Captain, who called me back later that evening. “How many bikes do you think you can get?” he asked. “Well, I’m going to shoot for the one thousand. I think I can do it, but I have to start now.” We had two days, and the Captain says, “even if it’s two or three hundred, that would be great.”

Right.

Most of you already know how this story ends, because it was YOU WHO WROTE IT. This mailing list, every club mailing list, every internet forum was called upon and called upon again. I sent out posters electronically for you to print. “1,000 Wheels for Pat.” And print you did, the posters wet up in dealerships, bike shops, club houses, bars, anywhere that ANYONE on a bike might see it. Word of mouth. Radio station blurbs. Police stations and radio calls – IF YOU HAVE A BIKE, WE NEED YOU! Take the day off, call in sick, close your office or shop, take a loooong lunch break, but BE THERE. And YOU answered that call, man oh man, did you answer that call. IN TWO DAYS WE RAISED ONE THOUSAND RIDERS –

WE GOT OUR “1,000 WHEELS FOR PAT.”

I arrived at Bensalem High School, the announced staging area (chosen by consensus between me, the Philly PD and Bensalem PD) at 1000. A short time later T arrived, Kat riding copilot. T, an “officer” and experienced Road Captain of Warriors’ Watch, was to be in charge of on-site logistics. Other officers and Road Captains had set up secondary rally points surrounding Bensalem to gather together riders from all compass points – six secondary rally points in all, each one led by an experience Road Captain of the Warriors’ Watch organization. Other clubs had set their own rally points for the ride to Bensalem, so we were expecting the arrival of many riders in groups. Anticipating this, we had men and women on side with radio communication for identification, staging and lining the groups up so as not to slight anyone. With everyone in place, YOU began to arrive, and what a sight you were! After a while a rider here, a group there, turned in to a steady stream of V-twin and other engines all converging on Bensalem. Into the school lot you came, and came and came and came, until the lot turned in to a sea of chrome, painted steel, black leather and denim. A true Biker Brotherhood in action!

At about noon a Bensalem Police Lt. came and took T to recon the street and cemetery area. On that ride they decided on the staging plan. The road was still open to traffic, so in order to ensure that we would have time to place everyone along the road, we would take the riders out in groups of 50 and place those groups in strategic locations so that when the road was closed they could simply spread out from there.

At 1230 the Philadelphia Police Brass arrived, as they had informed us that they would, and we called all the riders together to hear them. They were there to thank you for your gesture of respect to a fallen brother police officer. NO ONE took what you did for granted, it was marked and noted by ALL of the police brass, to the very highest level.

We began. Counting off riders in groups of 50, our WWR Road Captains took first one then another then another group out and put them into position. It takes awhile to place a thousand riders, even in groups of 50, but as it turns out we had time. At 1300 the road was closed by the Bensalem Police, and we rode out to spread the riders out. In the end we were not spaced as far apart as we had intended, but it all worked for the good. After everyone was in place, the WWR officers rode the entire 1.5 mile length of bikes, giving final briefings in preparation for the arrival of the procession. I have to tell you; riding from one end of our lineup to the other, it was a truly AWESOME presentation. A presentation fitting for a biker-cop-hero. (For an ariel view of the bikes, see this video, and remember that the bikes you see lining the road are only about half of the total distance we covered.)


I won’t drag out the rest of your story, I have an important point to make and I haven’t even gotten to it yet. Suffice it to say that when the procession finally arrived, it seemed to be endless. It seemed like a full hour is what it took for the procession to pass by us. Every police department in the region was represented. Car after car after car. Entire tour buses full of police officers. Police motorcycles as far as the eye could see. It was amazing, truly amazing.

BUT: More amazing was the tribute that YOU showed, and the reasons that it took only TWO days to rally one thousand riders to a cause, on a weekday. You did it out of a sense of outrage and deep anger and sadness over the violent death of yet another brother rider/cop. That respect, that honor that you showed, was reflected in the faces of the men and women inside the hundreds of police cars that passed us by. Those passengers LOOKED US IN THE EYES as they passed, and a sense of respect and understanding passed between them and you, in just a slight nod and in some cases a “thumbs up.”

In order to get one thousand riders together in the same place on only two days notice, it would mean that almost every one of you who HEARD the call also HEEDED the call. You came, in my opinion, because you are bikers, and to me, the “brotherhood of riding wheels” is a group of people who understand the meaning of honor, freedom, respect and of risk more than the average citizen. It touches a biker’s heart to know that a fellow biker not only lost his life far before his time, BUT THAT HE LOST HIS LIFE BECAUSE HE WAS ENGAGED IN DEFENDING THE FREEDOM THAT WE HOLD MORE DEAR THAN ANYTHING ELSE.

Without the men and women in blue to defend us, ANARCHY WOULD REIGN. “Anarchy” is not “freedom.” Anarchy is anathema to true freedom, the two cannot coexist. True Individual Freedom, the most important thing to any biker, can ONLY exist within the framework of the Rule of Law. Anarchists would take your freedom from you by force. Sgt. McDonald died when he took bullets which, had he not taken that risk, would eventually have found their way to an innocent, possibly even you.

I am writing this long “report” because I am humbled by what you have done. You, every one of you, committed an act of honor and decency that those who chronicle our popular culture would have you believe does not happen in America any more. You put aside your own comfort, your own safety, you spent your own meager pocket money and rode, in many cases for hours, all for the privilege of standing on the side of a road for hours to honor an honorable man. For THAT, I honor YOU, more than you can perhaps grasp.

I am deeply, intensely proud to be a “biker” tonight. I am proud because of the manner in which you conduct yourselves when it really counts. You know the meaning of respect. You know the meaning of honor. You know that the display of respect to one like Sgt. Patrick McDonald.

I am proud to be one of you because YOU came together to make a powerful statement to the friends and family and colleagues of Sgt. McDonald that you give a damn about him and about ALL of our uniformed protectors who go out each day with full knowledge that their lives are in danger.

To the family of Sgt. McDonald, we bikers are sorry, so very very sorry, for your loss. We bleed and grieve with you. To the Philadelphia Police, we may not show it when you pull us over for speeding, but when the chips are down we honor and respect the lives that you live and the risks that you take in defence of our liberty. To the citizens of our city, THIS MUST STOP. We will no longer tolerate you using our policemen and women for target practice. The no-snitch culture of violence has to come to an end.

To all of you who came out yesterday, or would have if you could have, I won’t say “thank you” because you didn’t do it for me. You did it for Sgt. McDonald, and even more, you did it because it was right, because it was your act of honor for a fallen hero.
– lutz