There were so many murders in his Brooklyn precinct when John Mullins became a detective in 1991 that he and his colleagues worked nearly around the clock, catching four or five hours of sleep in the stationhouse locker room before going back to work.
Mullins, 52, grew up in Lindenhurst, L.I., inspired to become a crimesolver by seeing television detectives solving crimes in nice suits.
“TV didn’t tell the whole story,” he said before his retirement walkout Friday from the 75th Precinct, where he worked since 1986.
Detective Mullins signs the login book for the last time before walking out from the precinct with his wife and kids as dozens of officers cheered.Photo: Paul Martinka
Mullins saw some of the city’s most horrific slayings — murders that got national attention like the copycat Zodiac killings of 1990-93, the brutal rape and murder of 24-year-old masters student Imette St. Guillen in 2006 and the cold-blooded execution of Officer Peter Figowski, which left his four daughters without a father.
But it’s the volume of murders that stands out.
In 1993, he and other detectives in East New York’s 75th precinct dealt with 129 homicides, the most in the city.
Since he joined the squad, there has been a total of 1,245 slayings in the precinct.
The precinct still leads the city in homicides, but last year it was just 17.
The biggest change in his job over the years is technology like DNA and ready information from computers, he said. “When I became a detective we didn’t even have beepers.”
The huge drop in murders since the 1990s had changed priorities, to include solving grand larcenies and assault. “In the old days if someone got their pocketbook robbed you wouldn’t have time to work on it,” he said.
Mullins looks on as he is cheered by dozens of officers and saluted by an NYPD aviation crew that flew overhead.Photo: Paul Martinka
But what hasn’t changed is what happens when a suspect is picked up and brought into the precinct interview room known as “the box.”
“It’s still just you and him in the room and you’ve got to get him to confess,” he said.
Mullins is a master at that, his superiors said. “When people get into the box they would just confess to him like Father Flanagan, to cleanse their souls,” one supervisor said.
“The best day” on the job was when he got his detective shield in 1991, he said. The worst were Sept. 11 and the death of Figowski, who had worked in the “seven-five” for more than 20 years.
Four cops he knew, including a former partner, died in the World Trade Center attacks.
Detective Mullins worked his entire 29-year-long career at the 75th Precinct.Photo: Paul Martinka
The arrest of suspects in the slaying of Figowski was “bittersweet,” he said. In cases like that, he said, ‘You’re never going to bring back the officer but at least you and the family know that the person responsible for this is going to jail for the rest of their lives.”
Mullins, who lives with his wife Patrice in Oceanside, L.I. and has two college student sons — Conor and Sean — and a high-school student daughter, Shannon, has some regret about retiring.
“I’ll miss the people I worked with. I’ll miss the friends. I’ll miss the laughs,” he said.
“But it’s just time to go.”
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