Paul Gillies

Minneapolis Police Department CIT Officer and Trainer Paul Gillies

Thursday was a vacation day for Minneapolis police officer Paul Gillies. He spent the morning at home, checking off a list of chores that his wife of 21 years had made for him.

Then, in the early afternoon, he put on his blue uniform and, as he has done countless times over the past two years, drove down to the Hennepin County Courthouse to once again face the woman who accused him of rape.
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Gillies didn't flinch when he heard the sentence, and he didn't celebrate. He knows that it's not over. He sometimes wonders if it will ever be.
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Gillies and Barnes were called downtown that afternoon and read their Miranda rights.
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Then Gillies went to his home in Burnsville and told his wife and two sons, then 15 and 12, that he had been accused of rape.

"In 20 years I've been involved in shootings, jumped out of a speeding car and now this," Gillies said Friday morning.
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Through the ordeal, Gillies said he's been made to feel like a criminal.
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"One day I heard somebody behind me say to someone else, 'How does it feel to sit near a rapist,'" said Gillies. "I thought they were talking about someone else."

Gillies grew up in south Minneapolis and graduated from Roosevelt High. "I wanted to be a cop since I was a kid," he said. "Everybody who gets into it wants to make a difference, and I know I have. I've been called to a lot of domestics, and I had a woman come up to me later and say, 'Thank you. You saved my life.'''

While cops can come off as detached or aloof, Gillies is comparatively gregarious. Sgt. Jesse Garcia has known Gillies for years. "Of all the officers they could have picked to do this, he's not the one," Garcia said. "Paul is cut from a different cloth altogether.
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"If that had happened in my first year, I'd have probably quit," Gillies said.
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Not to mention the lives of Gillies and Barnes.
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"Every year it gets worse and worse because of stuff like this,'' Gillies said.
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"On it goes," Gillies said.

Come and meet the stars of Getting it Right: Police Officer Paul Gillies and other CIT Officers; Charles Jenson; Gloria Freeman; as well as film maker Mike ,Media Mic' Hazard.

Come and meet the stars of Getting it Right: Police Officer Paul Gillies and other CIT Officers; Charles Jenson; Gloria Freeman; as well as film maker Mike 'Media Mic' Hazard.

Minneapolis Police Department CIT Officer and MPD's first CIT Coordinator, Paul Gillies