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Kristina Ripatti, a former Los Angeles Police Department officer who was shot and paralyzed in the line of duty in 2006, is training for a new challenge — the 3,000-mile Race Across America.<\/p>\n
Competing as part of a four-person relay team in June, Ripatti, 37, will help raise money for Operation Progress. Founded by LAPD Officer John Coughlin, the charity provides college scholarships for\u00a0youths in gang-infested areas.<\/p>\n
Ripatti, using a hand cycle, and her team must complete the Oceanside-to-Annapolis trek within 216 hours, about nine days.\u00a0 Her husband, LAPD gang officer Tim Pearce, will be part of her crew during the round-the-clock race.<\/p>\n
Ripatti was paralyzed from the waist down after being shot by a man who had just robbed a
\ngas station in South Los Angeles on June 3, 2006.\n<\/p>\n
It won’t be the first time that Ripatti has used\u00a0her hand cycle to raise money for Operation Progress: Last year she completed the Boston Marathon.\u00a0 She and Pearce have long been involved with the charity, which they see as a way of helping youths who resist the constant pressures to join gangs.\u00a0 The\u00a0organization already has helped send 35 high school\u00a0students to college.<\/p>\n
More information can be found at operationprogress.org<\/a> and raceacrossamerica.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n — Jean Merl<\/p>\n Photo: Ripatti leaving the hospital. Los Angeles Times \u00a0 Kristina Ripatti, a former Los Angeles Police Department officer who was shot and paralyzed in the line of duty in 2006, is training for a new challenge — the 3,000-mile Race Across America. Competing as part of a four-person relay team in June, Ripatti, 37, will help raise money for Operation Progress. Founded by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4388,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-467389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4388"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467389\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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