Officer to Be Honored for Talking Man Down From Water Tower

The 200 Club of Essex County will present a Valor Award to a West Orange officer for talking a man down from the Edison Water Tower in December of last year. 

Lt. Timothy Brennan will be recognized at the 2013 Valor Awards luncheon on Thursday, May 9 at Mayfair Farms, 481 Eagle Rock Ave. in West Orange.

“Law enforcement and firefighting are extremely hazardous professions which are performed at tremendous personal risk," Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontoura, a member of The 200 Club’s board of trustees, said in a release. "The work of The 200 Club of Essex County is greatly appreciated by the entire public safety community and their families.”

According to the Essex County Sheriff's Office, shortly after midnight on December 17, 2012, West Orange police received a report of a man threatening to jump from the roof of Edison Middle School.

After no one was found on the roof, Police saw a man on the 300-foot Edison Water Tower, police said.

Brennan, the crisis negotiator, talked the man down from the tower after five hours, saving his life, police said.