{"id":309468,"date":"2026-10-18T20:40:07","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T20:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/309468\/"},"modified":"2026-10-18T20:40:07","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T20:40:07","slug":"thousands-gather-for-run-for-blue-event-in-support-of-fallen-philadelphia-police-officer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/309468\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands gather for Run for Blue event in support of fallen Philadelphia police officer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) &#8212; The Philadelphia Police Foundation&#8217;s Market Street Run for Blue event brought together thousands Sunday morning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">This year was especially meaningful after an officer was killed in the line of duty last weekend.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;This is the most powerful way that we can assure our fallen officers are never, ever, ever forgotten,&#8221; said President of Philadelphia Police Foundation, Maureen Rush.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Marking the eighth year, the event kicked off in Old City Sunday morning and was emceed by 6abc anchor Sarah Bloomquist.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Around 2,200 people participated, running and walking the 5-mile-course through Front and Dock streets, Market Street and 23rd Street.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The last mile to the finish line was dedicated to the fallen Philadelphia Police Officers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Action News was there as Commissioner Kevin Bethel tackled the course alongside 6abc anchor, Sarah Bloomquist, who emceed the event.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;I&#8217;ve been at it for almost 40 years. I&#8217;ve seen a lot. I&#8217;ve lost during that time period numerous officers, so never a final mile for me, it&#8217;s a marathon,&#8221; said Commissioner Bethel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">This year&#8217;s event comes just one week after two Philadelphia police officers were ambushed in West Philadelphia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \"><a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/6abc.com\/post\/philadelphia-police-officer-dies-shooting-another-cop-injured\/19926939\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Forty-year-old Officer Shane Seiber <\/a>died, his 33-year-old partner, Officer Hector Rodriquez left critically injured after being shot 12 times.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;He&#8217;s got incredible family support, but his recovery is going really well, we are grateful for that,&#8221; said Bethel. &#8220;It is miraculous. I think he is a man of strong faith. His family is a family of strong faith. We continue to pray for him.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">People of all ages participated.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;I finished in like 44 minutes. Something like that. I&#8217;m very proud of my time. I think I did very good,&#8221; said Qurazz Overton of Mayfair.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;We wanted to be blue, I feel like we&#8217;re doing something important, and I feel like we&#8217;re our own little super heroes,&#8221; said Sgt. Janean Brown of the Philadelphia Police Department.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Money raised goes towards equipment, technology, and safety training for officers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">After the race, there was a formal ceremony announcing fastest runners in each category.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">Organizers say this year, the foundation is on track to raise more than $260,000.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2026 WPVI-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) &#8212; The Philadelphia Police Foundation&#8217;s Market Street Run for Blue event brought together thousands Sunday morning.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[126713,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-309468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-126713","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}