St. Paul mourns police officer who died 15 years after on-duty attack

Felicia Reilly, the retired St. Paul police officer who died this month after battling for 15 years with the aftermath of an attack on the job in 2010, was laid to rest on Monday.

Over 100 police officers from across Minnesota joined Reilly’s family and friends at Gustavus Adolphus Lutheran Church on St. Paul’s East Side, to hear the pastor of her church talk about her deep faith, and to hear one of her five children remember his mother.

“She never made a promise, no matter how small, that she did not keep,” son Matthew Reilly said.

He recalled the mother who urged him to embrace curiosity as they pulled fur and bones out of owl pellets, the generous spirit that meant she always cooked enough to make an extra plate, and the kindness that led her to help a little boy she met on patrol one day to find a home for a stray kitten — in her own home.

She named the kitten Donut, Matthew Reilly said, “because cops love doughnuts.”

The officers in the sanctuary — St. Paul police in dark blue sitting near the front, flanked by the paler blue shirts of Minneapolis police and the browns and tans of sheriff’s deputies — chuckled and clapped.

Reilly served as an officer with the St. Paul Police Department from 1996 until she retired in 2013.

In March 2010, she went to the home of Thomas Swenson after a 911 hang-up call. At the house, Swenson’s mother said he had threatened others and had been drinking after he stopped taking medication for bipolar disorder.

Police said Swenson punched her and kicked her in the back of the head several times. The attack left her with serious injuries, and she had near-constant migraines and double vision.

St. Paul Police Chief Axel Henry was a supervisor the day Reilly was attacked, and one of the first to arrive to help her. At the service Monday, Henry said he is still eaten by questions about what he could have done differently that day, if he could have intervened.

“I think we will never be able to forgive ourselves for not getting there sooner,” he said.

A jury found Swenson guilty of first-degree assault, fourth-degree assault and obstructing the legal process and he was sentenced in 2013 to 8½ years in prison.

After her injury, Reilly’s son said his mother remained curious and engaged in the world, and pastors at Gustavus Adolphus said her faith helped her navigate her injuries and health with grace and led her to forgive the man who attacked her, even as her health declined.

She looked back with pride on her police career.

Over her 17 years at the St. Paul Police Department, Henry said Reilly responded to more than 20,000 calls and wrote 1,500 citations. She was eager to take shifts that could be difficult, he said, because she wanted to be somewhere she could be of service, in East Side neighborhoods that she saw needed good cops.

“In our world, words like service and purpose have great meaning,” Henry said. “There is no greater gift than to find your purpose.”

Henry praised Reilly’s courage on the job, and in her struggles with her health after retirement.

“For those of you that have been in a fight, a 90-second fight is an eternity” — and Reilly had been fighting for 15 years, Henry said.

“I can’t go back and clear the call sooner to get there,” Henry said. But he could recognize Reilly’s service and said she had been awarded a medal of valor for her service to the city.