Friends, family, fellow officers pay respects to retired Illinois State Police trooper

Family, friends and fellow Illinois State Police troopers gathered at a Maywood church Saturday for the funeral of slain retired Senior Master Trooper Gregory Rieves, whom they described as loving, charismatic and prayerful.

Dozens upon dozens of squad cars and official vehicles lined Madison Street outside Rock of Ages Baptist Church. It was standing room only inside the enormous church where mourners included Rieves' son Gregory Rieves Jr., Rieves' parents and siblings, fellow troopers, classmates from Proviso East High School who dressed in school colors, and Phi Beta Sigma fraternity brothers from Rieves' alma mater, Indiana State University.

Rieves was murdered in a Lisle cigar lounge Jan. 24, less than a year after he retired from a 25-year career with the Illinois State Police. Surveillance video showed that a woman shot Rieves, 51, in the back of the head "without apparent provocation," according to Lisle police.

The assailant, Lisa V. McMullan of Chicago, also wounded off-duty state Trooper Kaiton Bullock, 48, and retired Special Agent Lloyd Graham, 55, before killing herself, authorities said.

A training officer, reminisced about his decadeslong friendship with Rieves. "We laughed until we cried, all the time," he said. Another state trooper described Rieves as a "protector" who always had his fellow officers' backs.

One of Rieves' childhood friends presented his son with a framed photograph of the trooper along with framed baseball and basketball jerseys in Proviso East's royal blue and white colors.

During his eulogy, Gregory Rieves Jr. said his father "would want me to be the man that he was. ... I will uphold his legacy."