{"id":284809,"date":"2026-04-25T02:13:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T02:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/284809\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T02:13:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T02:13:08","slug":"recent-oakland-homicide-victim-had-bragged-about-role-in-2022-unsolved-killing-police-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/284809\/","title":{"rendered":"Recent Oakland homicide victim had bragged about role in 2022 unsolved killing, police say"},"content":{"rendered":"

OAKLAND \u2014 Jimmy Mullins was sitting next to his girlfriend inside Mr. Phone Repair on International Boulevard<\/a>\u00a0when someone came in and shot him more than a dozen times at close range, authorities said.<\/p>\n

Mullins, 26, died on the floor of the store, succumbing to his wounds before paramedics arrived. Now, police believe that Mullins\u2019 Feb. 11 killing may have been an instance of vigilante justice over the unsolved 2022 killing of 33-year-old Jamal Watkins. Mullins was a suspect in the 2022 shooting<\/a>, and even allegedly bragged to another man that he was responsible, but avoided criminal charges, according to court records.<\/p>\n

Last month, Oakland police arrested a 37-year-old man \u2014 a relative of Watkins \u2014 on suspicion of murder in Mullins\u2019 death. Prosecutors have not charged him in Mullins\u2019 killing, but they have charged him with possessing an assault rifle allegedly found during his March 12 arrest, court records show. He has been released from jail while the case is pending, records show.<\/p>\n

Mullins\u2019 death remains under investigation. The details police have released thus far describe a series of unlucky coincidences for Mullins, who appeared to have been caught off-guard and specifically targeted by his killer.<\/p>\n

The story begins on the night of July 22, 2022, when Watkins, a security guard and father of four, was shot and crashed his Hyundai on the 8200 block of E Street in Oakland. Surveillance footage showed a man firing repeatedly into the car, even after Watkins was struck by gunfire, and that a second person engaged in a shootout with the suspect.<\/p>\n

While police were processing the homicide scene, Mullins was arriving at an Oakland hospital with a gunshot wound. He was immediately considered a suspect in the shooting, given the timing of events, but refused to talk about it, court records show. Police arrested him on an outstanding gun possession warrant.<\/p>\n

Three months later, Watkins\u2019 mother gave media interviews, voicing her frustration with the lack of resolution in the killing. She told KTVU<\/a> that the pain of losing a son had hit her \u201cminute by minute, second by second,\u201d and encouraged witnesses to come forward to authorities. The following year, the San Francisco Chronicle highlighted Watkins\u2019 killing<\/a> in a story about unsolved homicides.<\/p>\n

But if authorities lacked definitive proof that Mullins had killed Watkins, others in the community were more certain. After Mullins was killed, police interviewed a man who said Mullins had bragged to him about killing Watkins, when the two were housed in a Bay Area jail together, authorities said in court filings. The story had reportedly gotten back to Mullins\u2019 family.<\/p>\n

Mullins was known to carry a gun on him \u2014 he has gun possession convictions in 2021, 2022, 2024, and 2025. A month before he was killed, police raided his Oakland home and seized three guns, and his cellphone, leading to a new felony case against him, court records show. That left Mullins without a weapon and in need of a new phone.<\/p>\n

So on Feb. 11, an unarmed Mullins entered the cellphone store with his girlfriend. On the way in, he bumped into two relatives of Watkins, and said hello to one. The men didn\u2019t respond, having heard the story about Mullins\u2019 alleged involvement in Watkins\u2019 death, authorities said.<\/p>\n

About an hour later, a man ran into the store and opened fire as Mullins sat on a couch. No one else was struck by gunfire, authorities said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OAKLAND \u2014 Jimmy Mullins was sitting next to his girlfriend inside Mr. Phone Repair on International Boulevard\u00a0when someone…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[861,862,143,863,145,5061,864,144,865],"class_list":{"0":"post-284809","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-bay-area-crime","9":"tag-california-crime","10":"tag-oakland","11":"tag-oakland-crime","12":"tag-oakland-headlines","13":"tag-oakland-homicide","14":"tag-oakland-murder","15":"tag-oakland-news","16":"tag-oakland-shooting"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}