The 26th District's Michael Cermignano, who has been on the job six months, and Domenic Bowes, on the job a year, were given commendations of merit.

"We're here today to honor a couple of officers who performed an outstanding job and actually saved the life of an individual," Ramsey said from Police Headquarters, where he read their citations.

"Through their training, they were actually able to talk to this individual and calm the person down and prevent the individual from jumping," he said.

The commissioner said he would place the commendations in the officers' personnel files, shook hands with them, and recognized their "great" work.

Responding to a call April 8, Cermignano and Bowes found a man screaming from a roof in the 1200 block of North Leithgow Street that he wanted to die and threatening to jump.

The officers are part of a relatively new training program to help police deal with emotionally disturbed people. They talked to the man for an hour before getting him to come down, Ramsey said. The man was taken to Episcopal Hospital and admitted to the mental health unit, Ramsey said.

The training was provided through a federal grant to create a crisis-intervention team, said Lt. Francis Healy, special adviser to the commissioner.

Police also can call Behavioral Health Services for a crisis team that includes mental-health counselors and medical professionals, team coordinator Michele Dowell said.

About 160 officers throughout the patrol districts have been trained for crisis intervention, and more will be trained on how to handle mentally ill people, Ramsey said.

"Officers that encounter them need to know how to recognize them very quickly and bring the situation under control by de-escalating the situation and preventing it from getting any worse," he said.