Peace officer - Warwick cop carries stones from Peace Wall to D.C.

Warwick — When Warwick Police Officer Ron Donnatin and his colleague Sgt. John Rader went to Brooklyn on Tuesday morning, Sept. 11, 2001, they thought they would be getting training on the Brooklyn waterfront. Instead, they watched terrorism rip through the towers of the World Trade Center. Donnatin and Rader spent the next 24 hours helping to evacuate people from lower Manhattan via fire boats. Shortly after the attacks on America, the Sanfordville Elementary School community built its Peace Wall Memorial to symbolize hope and peace in the world. Four years later, our community has not forgotten. And while everyone remembers in their own way, Donnatin marked the day by bringing part of Warwick to two sites devastated on that dark day. Donnatin took part in the Tour de Force, a four-day biking event that raised $55,000 for families of police officers who have been killed in the line of duty. He was one of 74 police officers and three civilians to make the symbolic trip from New York City to Washington, D.C. His first stop, though, was at the Sanfordville Peace Wall, which was inspired by Nicholas Roerich’s “Banner of Peace” and designed by Sanfordville students. He took stones from the pond to make the journey with him. The tour began on Sept. 8 from the Brooklyn Bridge to the police memorial at Ground Zero, then onto Toms River, N.J., for a total of 70 miles on the first day. The second day the riders traveled from Toms River to Cape May, covering more than 100 miles. On the third day, they did about 60 miles and traveled to the edge of Washington, D.C. Then, on the fourth anniversary of the attack that took the lives of so many of their brothers and sisters, the riders got a police escort into the city and to the Pentagon. Donnatin said bringing a piece of his community to Ground Zero and to the Pentagon was a moving experience. “This was a special way to remember Sept. 11,” he said. “It was a way of representing the people of Warwick.”