{"id":23862,"date":"2019-05-30T17:03:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-30T21:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23862"},"modified":"2019-06-05T20:14:50","modified_gmt":"2019-06-06T00:14:50","slug":"york-police-run-in-memory-of-slain-detective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/york-police-run-in-memory-of-slain-detective\/","title":{"rendered":"York Police run in memory of slain detective"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The York Regional Police are ensuring one of their own\u2019s passion for the Special Olympics lives on forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The memory of Rob Plunkett, a strong\nambassador for the Special Olympics in life, lives on through the annual Race\nfor Plunkett, held Wednesday at Riverwalk Commons in Newmarket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though the torch run by law enforcement\nwas celebrating its thirtieth anniversary this year, it<\/p>\n\n\n\n

was the ninth to be named in honour of\nPlunkett, who served as chair of the 2000 Special<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Olympics Spring Games in York Region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plunkett was the victim of a botched car\ntheft in August of 2007.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After his death, two other York Region\nofficers stepped in to take on his role as the coordinator of the torch run,\nwhich now accepts citizens outside of law enforcement and draws hundreds of\nparticipants each year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A gold medalist at the Canadian Police\nOlympics and the \u201cToughest Cop Alive\u201d contest, his love<\/p>\n\n\n\n

for sports fueled his passion to get as\nmany people as possible into the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot only was Rob a dedicated police\nofficer, he led by example in encouraging his colleagues to participate in the\ntorch run,\u201d said YRP Deputy Chief Jim MacSween. \u201cThe legacy he has left is\ntruly inspiring.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The event, which begins at Newmarket\u2019s\nRiverwalk Commons and followed routes of both five and ten-kilometres, raised\nover $25,000, all of which goes to the Special Olympics program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the past three years, the event\nalone has raised over $90,000 for Special Olympics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe York Regional Police has long been\na supporter of the Special Olympics movement,\u201d said MacSween. \u201cWe served as the\nhost police agency for a few different Games, our service has always stepped up\nto create incredible experiences for a number of our athletes, a number of\nwhich are on hand today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year is an especially memorable one\nfor those involved in the program: it marks fifty years since Special Olympics\ntouched down in Ontario.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the last fifty years, Special\nOlympics Ontario has grown into the world\u2019s largest movement dedicated to\npromoting respect, inclusion, and human dignity for people with intellectual\ndisabilities through sport,\u201d said MacSween. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen what sport can do to\nchange the lives of children and adults with intellectual disabilities\u2026it shifts\nthe focus from disability to ability. That\u2019s an incredible accomplishment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As is tradition, prior to the run\nmembers of Special Olympics Ontario carried the torch across the<\/p>\n\n\n\n

grounds of the Commons to the podium\nbefore reciting the Special Olympics motto: \u201cLet me<\/p>\n\n\n\n

win. But if I cannot win, let me be\nbrave in the attempt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Registration fees and donations to the\nevent went directly to supporting athletes living with intellectual\ndisabilities, helping cover the cost of transportation, programming, uniforms, and\nmore.<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jake Courtepatte The York Regional Police are ensuring one of their own\u2019s passion for the Special Olympics lives on forever. The memory of Rob Plunkett, a strong ambassador for the Special Olympics in life, lives on through the annual Race for Plunkett, held Wednesday at Riverwalk Commons in Newmarket. Though the torch run by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5,24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/2019-05-30-04.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6cS","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-25 06:56:36","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}