Long Ride riders honor fallen deputies at new Fresno memorial

About two dozen bicyclists rolled into Fresno County’s new sheriff memorial Saturday and turned a scheduled stop into a public reminder that the region’s losses in law enforcement are measured in names, not ceremony.

The riders, part of Law Enforcement United’s Long Ride, stopped at about 2 p.m. at the Area 2 Substation, 1129 N. Armstrong Ave. in Fresno, where the new Fresno Sheriff Memorial stands as a place to honor deputies who died in the line of duty. The group had started in San Francisco, worked its way through California’s Central Valley, including Fresno and Tulare counties, and was expected to continue toward Los Angeles before finishing the route May 7.

Law Enforcement United says the Long Ride is an 8-day memorial bicycle ride built around 62 wreath-laying ceremonies. The nonprofit says its mission is to honor law enforcement officers who died in the line of duty and to remember the survivors left behind, a message that gave added weight to the Fresno stop as riders moved through a county with a long history of memorializing fallen officers.

That history is already visible in downtown Fresno. Courthouse Park, home to the Fresno County Courthouse, has been a site of community activity since the 1870s and now holds many memorials, including the Fresno County Peace Officers Memorial. The Fresno County Peace Officers Memorial Foundation says that memorial honors peace officers who died in the line of duty while serving in Fresno County and helps maintain both the stone and the annual National Police Week ceremony.

A 2025 local report said 64 officers’ names were etched into the memorial stone, a reminder that the county’s tribute is not symbolic in the abstract. It is a roll call of local sacrifice that has grown over generations and now includes recent honors for Fresno County Deputy Sheriff Jose Mora and Fresno Police Department Officer Angel De La Fuente.

The stop at the new Fresno Sheriff Memorial linked those older tributes to a newer one, placing the ride’s national purpose in a local setting recognizable to Fresno County families. For deputies, police officers and survivors who gathered around the memorial, the message of the day was clear: the loss of an officer does not end with a single event, and the community’s obligation to remember does not either.