Eileen Tiernan’ s mother, Patricia Tiernan, holds the Bible during her promotion to lieutenant in 2010.
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Tiernan remembers on more than one occasion being forced to do pushups with the rest of the academy class due to Tolomeo’ s habit of responding“ yeah,” instead of“ yes, sir” to the drill instructors.
“ Tolomeo, stop saying‘ yeah,’ you’ re going to get us all in trouble,” Tolomeo remembers Tiernan demanding under her breath at the sight of the drill instructors approaching.
It didn’ t faze Tiernan that she was the lone female in a class full of men but when physical training ended each day, she was sure to make a beeline to the female locker room— on a mission to grab some water pressure before the mob of guys started up their showers and left her with nothing but a trickle.
“ I think she had it even harder than we did because she was
Eileen Tiernan moves into the chief’ s office at the Woodland Park Police Department.
alone in [ her locker room ],” considers Lou DeLuca, who also remembers going through the academy with Tiernan, before they both began working together at WPPD.“ She had to fend for herself without anyone there to help her, while rushing to get the uniform together and making sure everything was polished and clean.”
But after getting to know Tiernan, it became clear that she could fend for herself. Tolomeo saw this for himself during the first few years that he was a member of Totowa Local 80. One night, he responded to a scene outside of a club where fights were breaking out in a crowd of 200 people. Tiernan was one of the officers who responded to Tolomeo’ s call for backup. Amid the commotion in the crowd, Tolomeo watched a civilian flick a cigarette butt at Tiernan. He had to fight back his urge to defend the officer who felt like a sister to him, and knew that she could handle the situation
44 NEW JERSEY COPS ■ AUGUST` 2018