Residents Pack Nightspot in Support of Police Unity Tour Bike Rider

Crowds packed the Friday night at the final fundraiser for Centreville’s on a grueling 200-mile Police Unity Tour bike ride for law officers killed in the line of duty. 

“This is great, we are so happy that everyone could be here and support the tour,” said Whalen at the Chantilly nightspot. “This will really give me a big boost.”

This will be the fourth time Whalen, 48, a senior special agent for the Treasury Department, has ridden in the tour. Riders participate to increase awareness of law officers who have died in the line of duty and raise money for the National Law Enforcement Officer's Memorial and Museum in Washington DC.

Whalen, who has raised about $5,000 so far, started riding following the 2006 shootings at the Sully Station police substation that left two Fairfax County police officers dead. This year he is riding in memory of Virginia State Trooper Mark D. Barrett, 41, who died last September during a scuba-diving training exercise on Lake Anna in Louisa County.

Friday’s fundraiser was headlined by a pair of musical acts: Lisa Dotolo, a Nashville-based musician, and Rick Caballo, a singer-songwriter from Australia.

“This is just a great event and gives us a chance to give back to those folks who put everything on the line for us every day,” Caballo said between sets.

The fact that Dotolo and Caballo played at a fundraiser for Whelan is an example of Centreville synergy and the work of Dawn Sciarrino, a Centreville attorney and long-time friend of the Treasury agent.

Sciarrino met the two musicians at an event last year in Nashville where she was attending a professional development meeting. Impressed, she linked Caballo up with a Best Buddies-Special Olympics fundraiser last year. Both musicians volunteered to help out Whelan, as did the Backyard Grill and the Baltimore production crew that set up the stage lights and sound system, she said.

“It’s just a great event and once we told everyone what it was about, they all wanted to help,” Sciarrino said.

The three-day ride, from May 10-12, starts in Richmond, travels to Charlottesville and then through Centreville on Route 29 to RFK Stadium in Washington. The riders plan to hit the intersection of Routes 28 and 29 at about 9:30 a.m. on May 12 and take a lunch break at the Costco on West Ox Road.

Whalen urged residents to come out on Thursday when the tour is passing through Centreville or visit them at the Costco.

 “It would be great just to see everybody on the route as we come by, that’s a real goose-bumps moment,” Whalen said.