When Greg Knoll died Nov. 11, he died a Minneapolis police officer, not a sick cancer patient, his wife said.
He attacked his illness for two years, surviving an initial radical surgery involving the removal of his stomach and lymph nodes, as well as parts of his spleen and pancreas. After her husband's death, Melissa Knoll read a doctor's note that said he hadn't believed Greg would make it through the surgery.
Instead, the 37-year-old father of two recovered, returned to work for four months and was even close to getting clearance to return to the SWAT team. But then the stomach cancer came back, and the man who weighed 190 pounds as an officer shrank to 90 pounds. Knoll insisted on one last exploratory surgery two days before he died.
"Knowing what a fighter he was, I was happy he never had to give up," said his wife.
The couple met at Syracuse University, where Greg Knoll majored in economics. She persuaded him to move back to her home state of Minnesota. His boredom with desk jobs pushed him into a law enforcement career.
Knoll was hired by the Minneapolis Police Department in 1997 and was later assigned to the Third Precinct's community response team, which goes after street-level drug, gang and prostitution crimes. That's where he met Sgt. Matt Wente. The fellow officers would spend many long hours together.
"I knew he wanted to be on the SWAT team because he liked anything that went fast and went bang," Wente said.
Sgt. Mark Sletta, one of his SWAT supervisors, described Knoll as a great guy and hard worker. SWAT team members have to be in particularly good shape because of their heavy protective gear and are required to take a tough physical fitness test twice a year, he said.
