‘I couldn’t have asked for a better husband’

As Corporal Oliver Mullings prepared to head to work last Thursday afternoon, he asked his wife, Josephine Parker-Mullings, if she had lunch money for the children for Friday.

She recounts him pledging to return home in time to provide the funds but left lunch on the table just in case.

He did not return home.

Around 1 a.m Friday, Parker-Mullings said she was awakened by police officers with the gut-wrenching news that her husband of 11 years had been shot and killed on duty.

Reports from the police are that at about 10:45 p.m. Thursday, the corporal was among a team of cops who responded to a call from residents of Third Street in the Kingston Western Police Division.

The lawmen were attacked by gunmen. The 46-year-old cop and accused gunman, 26-year-old Shemar Fletcher, were killed in the incident.

Parker-Mullings said the family is still trying to come to terms with the policeman’s death.

“I am really hurt by the way he went. I don’t think he deserved to go that way. No one deserves to go that way, but with the passion he had for the job, I didn’t expect anyone to kill him,” she said.

Corporal Mullings joined the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) 15 years ago and was stationed in Denham Town. According to his wife, he was very aware of the dangers of his job in the volatile police division but wanted to make a difference.

“I know he loved his job, he had a passion for it. He wasn’t someone who was going just to earn a living. He goes because it’s his passion,” she said in a Gleaner interview.

Parker-Mullings described the late corporal as a dedicated husband and father whose kindness was felt beyond his home.

A resident of his Old Harbour community concurred, telling The Gleaner that the last time he saw the corporal, he assisted him with bus fare to get to work.

“That is something that he is always doing; they don’t even have to ask,” Mullings’ wife said.

A consummate family man, Parker-Mullings said her husband always ensured that all birthdays and anniversaries were celebrated. She said he loved children, had a great sense of humour, and never took life too seriously.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better husband. For 11 years, I was happily married,” she said.

The mourning widow is especially concerned about the impact of his death on his two children – a nine-year-old son and a 15-year-old daughter. The daughter, she said, lost her biological mother, Detective Sergeant Maydene Blackwood Saunders, two years ago in a traffic crash.

“She is still grieving the loss of her mom, so this is really double impact,” she said.

The cop’s father, retired police Sergeant Oliver Mullings Sr, told The Gleaner that he was proud when his son decided to follow in his footsteps. He is still in shock that he was killed in the community to which he gave so much of his life.

“The relationship he had with the people there was very good. I think him usually lead a group where when dem have flare-up in the area, he would be assigned to go into the area and provide support for victims and he’d counsel, pray with them, whether young or old or middle age,” the elder Mullings said.

Mullings Sr shared that while the pain of losing his son gnawed at his peace of mind, he took solace in the knowledge that his son was a devoted Christian.

“Warriors don’t die. We report for duty in heaven,” read a message Corporal Mullings posted to social media a few days before he died.

Mullings was the second cop killed in less than a week.

Twenty-two-year-old Constable Brian Martin was murdered at a wake in Frog City, Maxfield Park, St Andrew, two Saturdays ago. He was stationed in Half-Way Tree.

sashana.small@gleanerjm.com