None of the police officers who work in St. Paul’s Eastern District were on the job 30 years ago when Officer Ron Ryan Jr. was killed in the line of duty — some weren’t even born — but from now on their patrol station will bear the name of their fellow East Side officer.

The station was dedicated to Ryan on Monday, 30 years to the day since he and Officer Tim Jones were fatally shot by the same man.

The entryway into the station on Payne Avenue is now adorned with a full-size wall mural — it’s a photo collage of Ryan and the words “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

The phrase “isn’t just something we say. It is something we live,” Eastern District Chief Salim Omari told current and retired officers who gathered with firefighters and family members of Ryan and Jones during a ceremony outside the building Monday, saying they were there to “remember two men who will forever be a part of our city and the East Side.”

The St. Paul Police Department’s K-9 facility was previously named for Jones, who was slain along with his K-9 Laser, on Aug. 26, 1994.

Ryan, 26, was checking on a man — Guy Harvey Baker — who was sleeping in a car in a parking lot at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in the Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood about 7 a.m. Baker, also 26, feared Ryan would discover he was wanted in Iowa for violating probation on an illegal gun possession conviction.

Baker picked up a revolver from his lap and shot Ryan.

Scores of officers joined the search for Ryan’s killer. Jones had the day off, but he came in to help.

K-9 Laser picked up Baker’s trail about 10 a.m. on Conway Street, not far from Johnson Parkway. Baker heard the dog whining outside a fish house where he was hiding, saw Jones through the window and, through the side of the shack, shot the 36-year-old officer with the gun he had stolen from Ryan. When Laser bit his leg, he shot the dog, too.

Baker was sentenced to life without parole and remains in the Oak Park Heights prison.

“To this day, that stands as one of the most terrifying days” in the city’s history, Mayor Melvin Carter said at Monday’s ceremony.

Ryan and Jones’ “sacrifice and their service will forever be remembered in this city,” Carter said. “The names and the photographs on this building are a reflection on careers well served, but they’re also a reminder to us that the safety that we hold dear just cannot be taken for granted.”

Maria Ryan Hanggi, left, sister of the late St. Paul Police Officer Ron Ryan Jr., mother Kelly Ryan, center and widow Ann Kluender listen to Mayor Carter speak during a ceremony to mark the renaming of the St. Paul Police Department Eastern District station to the Ron Ryan Jr. Eastern District station on Aug. 26, 2024. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Remembering Ronnie

Jones’ son, Matt, is now a St. Paul police officer and he attended Monday’s ceremony with fellow officers. Maria Ryan Hanggi, Ron Ryan Jr.’s younger sister, sat in the front row outside the building with their mother, Kelly Ryan; the younger Ryan’s widow, Ann Kluender; and other family members. Ron Ryan Sr. died in 2022.

“When they asked if someone from the Ryan family would like to say a few words, all I could think about is my dad and Ronnie fighting over the microphone,” Hanggi told the people gathered.

Her brother “would think this is great,” Hanggi continued. “… He’d be like, ‘A building with my name and photos and images all over?’ He would completely eat this up. So, you did good for him.”

For people who didn’t know Ron Ryan Jr., Hanggi told them about her brother: He “had a larger-than-life personality. He brought fun to any room he entered. When Ronnie arrived, the party began. … He did not let small rules get in the way of a good time or a laugh. I believe God gave him grace and allowed him to live his life to the fullest, knowing it was going to be a short one here on Earth.”

More than anything, Ryan “had a great love for people, and he lived his life in this manner,” Hanggi said.

He graduated from Hill-Murray School in 1985 and then attended different colleges, trying to find his passion. “At one point, Ronnie was a member of a fraternity at the university, yet he didn’t even attend the school,” Hanggi remembered.

When Ryan Jr. made the decision to become a police officer, “he was all in,” she said. He studied law enforcement at Century College and worked as a St. Paul police parking enforcement officer to earn his way. He graduated from the St. Paul police academy in 1993, following in his father’s footsteps and becoming a St. Paul officer.

“It was very special to watch Big Ron pin Ronnie’s badge,” Hanggi said. “It was my father’s honor, and he was extremely proud.” One of the photos in the Eastern District mural shows the moment of the badge pinning.

Shortly before Ryan Jr.’s graduation from the academy, he and Ann were married. They bought a home together near Lake Phalen and had a special dog — a failed K-9. “Life was good,” his sister said. “Ronnie was very proud to be an officer in the city he grew up in.”

He’d been an officer for one year when he was killed.

“At that time, police officers being killed was not really a thing,” Hanggi said. “Unfortunately, in today’s society, it happens far too often.”

Two Burnsville police officers and a Burnsville firefighter/paramedic were ambushed and killed in the line of duty in February.

Life taken ‘too early … too senselessly’

Ryan Jr.’s widow remarried and had two children. Kluender remembered Ryan Jr. as an “amazing man” whose “life (was) taken way, way too early and way too senselessly.”

Walking in the door at the Eastern District station, and seeing the large photos of Ryan Jr. “full of life, … it’s hard to hard not to get emotional,” she said.

The signs outside the building will be changed to say “Ron Ryan Jr. Eastern District” — words already enshrined in the lobby by the murals. The wall on the opposite side of the mural for Ryan Jr. is now a photo collage of the East Side community.

The idea for the project was a “grassroots” effort, said Police Chief Axel Henry. Officers and a civilian employee came up with the idea and collected the old photos for the project.

Vomela Companies in St. Paul helped bring the project to life by donating their printing services. The remaining costs were about $6,000, Omari said.

“I’m just sorry it took us 30 years,” Henry said, adding that he thought it fitting that it came to fruition on a milestone anniversary of the tragic day.

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