Remembering slain officer

Led by a police officer on horseback and followed by a train of teachers, relatives of Officer Charles Lazzaretto, a Glendale police officer who was killed in the line of duty in 1997, walked a slow lap Saturday morning around the playground at St. Francis Xavier school in Burbank to commemorate the 10th anniversary of his death.

It is the 10th time “The Lazzaretto Lap” has been walked by relatives and school staff in memory of the fallen police officer. The lap is a tradition that has been merged with the school’s annual jog-a-thon fundraiser. Before the students start their jog, parents, teachers and kids walk a lap dedicated to Lazzaretto and his family.

The tradition started at the school because Lazzaretto’s mother, Nan, was a first-grade teacher there when her son was killed. The entire school community was deeply affected by his death, said Shari Green, a health aide at the school who has helped organize the jog-a-thon since its inception 27 years ago.

“When Officer Lazzaretto passed away, it hit the school very hard,” Green said.

Lazzaretto’s mother was present at the event, as well as his father, Andrew; wife, Annamaria; and two sons, Andrew, 14, and Matthew, 13, in addition to extended family.

“We’re enormously honored,” Nan Lazzaretto said of the school’s commemoration.

The annual jog-a-thon, known as the Frances Schroeder Memorial Jog-a-Thon, started 27 years ago and is one of the parent-teacher organization’s primary fundraisers. The event, where students in the K-8 school run laps around the playground, is named after a former principal, said Paul Sullivan, current principal.

In the fundraiser, students run or walk laps for about an hour. Parents and friends sponsor the students either by the lap or at a flat rate, and the sponsorship money is used to fund projects and trips organized by the parent-teacher organization.

Before The Lazzaretto Lap on Saturday morning, white doves were released into the clear sky and Glendale Police Det. Miguel Porras, who worked with Lazzaretto in the burglary/auto theft/arson detail for two years starting in 1995, addressed the crowd.