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hers. Chief Weck asked Officer Tarentino to consider what the
department could develop to address this issue. Three weeks
later, he had written a 30-page operations plan accounting for
response to residents with autism, Alzheimer’s, Dementia and
several other conditions affecting kids, adults and seniors. The
plan accounted for specialized training, provided dispatchers
with information of where residents who might need help lived
and became the blueprint for the award-winning and national-
ly recognized “Summit PD Cares” program.
That was Matt.
At Matt’s funeral service on June 5, New Jersey Attorney Gen-
eral Christopher Porrino, a Summit resident, crescendoed his
remarks to the masses by recounting how his son sent a text to
his friends the night after Matt passed asking his friends what
they thought of Officer Tarentino. “In about 30 seconds, texts
started pouring in from teenage boys around the city,” Porrino
continued. “I’ll just share one with you: ‘Officer Tarentino had a
presence that I felt no other officer did. He put a smile on your
face. I believe he is an example of something all of us should
strive for.’”
That was Matt.
Somerville Local 147 member Tim Franks, a 28-year veteran
who taught Matthew Tarentino at the Somerset County Police
Academy, knew him from the time he was a little boy growing
up in town and eventually became a mentor and good friend.
“He knew me his whole life, but every time he saw me, he called
me ‘Officer Franks,’” Franks related. “I would tell him to call me
‘Tim,’ but he would say, ‘That’s disrespectful.’”
That was Matt.
At the funeral, Matt’s wife, Victoria, an amazing woman fu-
eled by the love, honor and humility she gave and received
from her husband, offered an astounding eight-minute tribute
in which she extolled Matt’s faith and legacy by telling that her
4-year-old son Robert and 2-year-old son Raymond knew that
their dad was in heaven. And as perhaps the ultimate tribute to
her husband, Vicki shared the rest of this story: “Our 2-year-ol