The recruits were members of class 372, which included 44 other recruits from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Academy and Glendale and Pasadena police departments.
The colors run celebrates recruits’ completion of 16 weeks of training at the Sheriff’s Department academy. They will graduate and officially become deputies and police officers in two weeks.
The run, which lasted an hour, began at 8 a.m. at Glendale police station at 131 N. Isabel St., to Wilson and Jackson streets, north to Glenoaks Boulevard to Graynold Avenue and Brand Boulevard.
Burbank Police Chief Tim Stehr didn’t pass up the opportunity to run.
“I cleared my whole schedule to do this,” he said.
The run honored Glendale police Officer Charles Lazzaretto. He was working an investigation in 1997 at a Chatsworth warehouse when he was ambushed and shot and killed by Israel Gonzalez, who was wanted for attempted murder. After a 2 1/2 -hour standoff with officers and a SWAT team, Gonzalez killed himself.
“He had the heart of a police officer,” Glendale Capt. Kirk Palmer of the Administrative Services Division said of Lazzaretto at the run.
The recruits were flanked Tuesday by a police motorcade and the Glendale police Special Weapons and Tactics vehicle as they ran in the city.
For Jacobson, the run marked the end of intense physical training and the beginning of a long career in law enforcement.
“This is the job for me,” he said.
Before joining the police academy, Snowden was a computer technician for UPS.
“I am a really active person,” the 32-year-old North Hills resident said. “I like to go out and about.”
Snowden’s UPS job “just got old,” he said.
