SOUTH ORANGE (WABC) — New Jersey’s most famous dancing cop is just about to have his last waltz.
Officer Butch Larkin was honored on Friday by the South Orange Police Department as he gets ready to step into retirement.
He’s been directing traffic with some twists and spins for nearly 30 years and has been on the force for 58 years.
“South Orange is a great place, if I can keep it that way if I can through retirement,” Larkin said.
Larkin was born in 1940 and is an army veteran.
He did two tours with the South Orange Police Department.
The first was in 1963 until 1993 and then he rejoined as a traffic control officer in 1997, where he directed cars and people with flair, until earlier this month.
“I love people and that’s how I show it. I always wanted to be a police officer. I found my opportunity to do it years ago,” Larkin said.
He has inspired a generation of officers like Captain Acevedo.
“It’s easy to get drivers really mad at you for holding them up a little bit too long, for not seeing someone else that was there. And so you can take from him because he does this like it’s nothing to him and it’s a good training experience to watch him, to see how he does it and just take off from that,” Acevedo said.
“If we’re out there, everybody is asking where Butch is. He’s South Orange,” Sgt. Nicholas Lonero said.
But no one is prouder of Larkin than his wife.
“It was time for him to leave and he wanted to go out on a good note,” his wife Sadie, said.
As for Larkin’s next act, he plans to spend his retirement in Florida and hopes to continue spreading joy.
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