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The Captain Jason Fuller Memorial Benefit Group, a nonprofit fundraising organization, will be holding a benefit ride in memory of Deputy J’Mar Colin Abel of the Chambers County Sheriff’s Department, who recently passed away when he lost control of his vehicle during a police chase.

The ride will take place on Saturday, July 16, starting at the Chambers County courthouse square in LaFayette. Registration will take place from 8:30 a.m. CDT until 11 a.m. CDT at the square. All street legal vehicles are allowed to participate. The ride will cost $20 per vehicle regardless of how many people are in the vehicle.

“We’ve partnered with Sheriff Sid Lockhart, and we’re going to do a trust,” said Candy Miles, the spokesperson for The Captain Jason Fuller Memorial Benefit Group. “And that trust will be for the four-year-old son and the baby that’s due to be born in about eight weeks.”

Some of the money will also go to Jasmine Gaddist, Abel’s pregnant fiancé, she said.

All proceeds from the event will go to this cause.

“We’re hoping for a really great turnout,” Miles said.

The Captain Jason Fuller Memorial Benefit Group will be holding this event in partnership with the Gunners Law Enforcement Motorcycle Club out of Auburn and the Big Swamp chapter of the Punishers Law Enforcement Motorcycle Club out of Opelika.

“We’re going to start at LaFayette courthouse square and go down 431,” Miles said. “We estimate 38 to 40 miles and then back. When we arrive at the courthouse square, we’ll have food vendors who are donating a percentage of their profits back to that family for the trust. We’re looking at a family fun kind of event.”

Miles said her group would be selling t-shirts at the square.

“On the back of it, there’s that thin blue line for the police flag,” Miles said. “And it says, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.’”

The front of the shirts will have Abel’s badge number with a line through it, Miles said.

“I don’t think there’s anything in this world we can do to make up for the loss of that young man,” she said. “But I do believe that we need to step in and help support those children and that young lady.”

Miles thanked Boyd’s Screen Printing in Valley for partnering with Fuller group to make the shirts. She also said the group would like to thank LaFayette Mayor Kenneth Vines for allowing them to use the courthouse square.

“We would like everyone that could to come out and support it,” Sheriff Sid Lockhart said. “Those that can ride on motorcycles or antique vehicles or… we’d love for them to come out. If you cannot, you can go by Farmers & Merchant’s Bank and make a donation, and it does not matter if it’s $1, $5, $10 because it all adds up.”

Lockhart was referring to a memorial account in honor of Abel that has been set up at Farmers & Merchant’s Bank. Donors can make contributions to the J’Mar Abel memorial fund at the locations in Lafayette and Huguley. The money will be given to Abel’s family.

Anyone who wants to become a sponsor for this event can call Miles at (706) 518-1616, group founder Howard Miles at (334) 476-1110 or the Chambers County Sheriff’s Office at (334) 864-4333.

Lockhart said Abel gave 100% for whatever he did.

“He went to work at the jail, and my guys at the jail came to me and said, ‘We’ve got a guy down here that wants to be a deputy,” he said. “You might want to interview him at your next opening. And we did, and I was real impressed. We sent him to Jefferson County Sheriff’s Academy, he graduated, and we put him on the road.”

Lockhart said that one time, Abel gave a woman a ticket, and he did this so professionally that the woman didn’t mind.

“We’re like family,” he said. “It hurts when you lose someone, especially a young man at his age. Like I said, with his fiancé seven months pregnant, it’s pretty tough.”

Miles said that Abel was the first deputy to die while on duty and in the line of service in Chambers County.

Additionally, Miles said that a friend of her group, Chambers County resident Ricky Strickland, is making a charcoal gray metal cross with a thin blue line, a design that represents law enforcement officers, to set up at Abel’s crash site.

Strickland owns Strickland’s Texaco Inc., a mechanic shop, in West Point.