Jim Mullins loved to build. A former major with the Atlanta Police Department, Mullins enjoyed tinkering with his many projects, his family said, finishing one and then moving on to the next.
But his last project, a sun room built on the back of the home he shared with his wife, would be his legacy.
The square room was meant for peaceful relaxation, overlooking a waterfall “the size of a minivan” that he and his grandson installed together, said his son Patrick Mullins, of Virginia.
"He was very generous, taking care of everybody else," Mullins said of his father.
James “Jim” Mullins died Sunday of leukemia prompted by a blood disorder. He was 74.
The family will hold a service at 10 a.m. on Wednesday at Henry Baptist Church in McDonough. Cannon Cleveland Funerals is in charge of arrangements.
Mullins couldn’t sit still for long, family said. He and Shirley Walker Mullins, his wife of 57 years, built and enjoyed five homes during three decades in Atlanta.
“We’d build and he would get antsy and we would move on,” she said.
Not only was he a practiced tinker, Mullins was equally skilled with people.
“He was an incredibly open person that was a very good mediator, a good bridge-builder,” his son said.
Born Apr. 16, 1939, and raised in Buchanan, Mullins served four years in the U.S. Air Force after leaving high school at 17. After a brief stint with an airline company, Mullins in 1960 joined the APD, where he would remain for over 30 years, serving the city through the Civil Rights movement. He once stood guard for Coretta Scott King and members of the Black Panthers, his son said.
Mullins served with several units and undertook many tasks as an officer, including implementing the city’s 911 service advancements in the late 1980s as the major in charge. On the side, he attended John Marshall Law School and completed police institutes with the University of Louisville and a six-month course taught by faculty at Harvard and Columbia Universities.
“It’s funny because he wasn’t a reader,” Patrick Mullins said. “But he was always really hungry to learn things. He knew it was essential to his career and to continue growing there.”
When he left the force in 1991, Mullins worked 12 years as the director of legal services at the Southern State Police Benevolent Association, lending guidance to law enforcement officials and their families to navigate the legal system.
“He did what was needed and he could do it with tact,” said his wife.
Mullins served as a deacon at his church and volunteered as a member of Gideon’s International in Henry County. Even while hospitalized after his illness worsened, he passed out scripture to everyone who visited.
“The cleaning ladies, the nurses, the doctor, everybody,” Patrick Mullins said. “He knew Jesus as his savior and he was going to heaven and he was trying to take everyone else with him.”
The little room at the back of the McDonough house is empty, but will soon be filled with the comforts that he intended the family to enjoy, his son said. The room is a metaphor, he said, for the life his father led, working to provide for his loved ones and to make better the lives of others.
Mullins is also survived by his daughter, Jami Covone, of Jonesboro, and two grandchildren.
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