Detective Tony Ferreira, flanked by his wife and three children, was promoted to Sergeant at Tuesday's council meeting.

Ferreira, who was born and raised in Fair Lawn, began his career with the Fair Lawn Police Department in 1989, following a one-year stint as a patrolman in Franklin Lakes. He became a detective in 2005.

Borough manager Tom Metzler, who worked with Ferreira back when he was a dispatcher, provided a highlight reel rundown of the brand-new sergeant's history with the department:

• He was one of the officers involved in the local search for the person responsible for the shooting death of Officer Mary Ann Collura. 
• He was the first officer on the scene of a homicide in town where he arrested the husband, who had a knife in his hand, and was later convicted of the murder of his wife.
• He arrested a burglar in the act of coming out of a business in the industrial park.
• While assigned to the detective bureau, he was responsible for making Fair Lawn the first community in Bergen County to use bar codes for property and evidence tracking. This system is now utilized across the state, including by the state police. 
• He worked with several of Fair Lawn's civilian dispatchers to include geocodes in the town's mapping system, for the better safety of the town's police officers. 

"But I think most significant and the biggest tribute that any of us could pay to Sgt. Ferreira is the fact that there's so many of his brothers that are here tonight," Metzler concluded. "Both current officers, I see a lot of retired officers, I see officers that were here and that moved to other departments, I see civilians that worked here and worked for other departments and, Sergeant, I think that's a tribute to you and to the Fair Lawn Police Department. Tony, it was my honor. Congratulations."

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