Reward offered in shooting of father driving with his kids
Ollie Mingo was driving two of his kids around while playing their favorite music when he turned onto a violent Hallandale Beach block and was shot in the back of his head, police and relatives say.
Mingo, 38, was driving his Chevrolet Lumina north along 800 Northwest Seventh Avenue. On the east side is a cemetery; on the west, a row of singlestory apartment houses. Bullet holes scar street signs and the entrance columns that lead to paths along the graves.
As father, daughter, 17, and son, 14, traveled along the block between Foster Road and Northwest Ninth Street, theywere slowed by dancers in the middle of the block, Mingo’s boss of 18 years said Thursday.
“The kids told us he stopped the car and they watched [the dancers], and as he drove away he got shot in the back of the head,” said Scott Stephens, owner of Battery Sales USA in NorthMiami.
Thecity is taking the unusual step of adding $13,000 to a $3,000 Broward County Crime Stoppers reward for information that results in an arrest. Two or three people were involved in the violence at 9 p.m. on May 17, Hallandale Beach Police Chief Dwayne Flournoy said Thursday.
“We’ve had significant issues of late in the area, crimes involving firearms and other acts of violence,” Flournoy. “We truly need the community to help, because we believe there are eyewitnesses to this and we need them to come forward. We thought if we had significant money attached to there ward, it would lead to an arrest.”
The Chevrolet crashed into a cemetery fence and light pole. Mingo died in his car. The teenagers ran north from the crash toward Pembroke Road and OB Johnson Park, where a Hallandale Beach police officer met them and called for more officers.
Flournoy said investigators do not have a description of the gunman and friends, and said they ran away.
“There is no reason for someone to be fearful to provide information to law enforcement,” Flournoy said. “When someone commits an act of violence on a member of the community, they will feel they’re never going to be held accountable for their actions and will continue to act with impunity [if someone doesn’t report them].
“Why should they not feel fearful the community will turn them in?” he said.
Mingo was aware house manager for the business that exports marine, auto andindustrial batteries and was the only person beside the owners to have a key.
“He is irreplaceable,” Stephens said. “We’re going to have to hire three people to do what he did, and they’re not going to do it aswell as he did.”
Mingo worked 12-hour shifts, five days a week at his job that required a lot of heavy lifting.
“We sell1,500 car batteries per day, so he’d have to receive them from the factories, put them away in the warehouse, pull the orders and package them on pallets for international shipping,” Stephens said.
Mingo put his twiceyearly bonuses toward his 30-year mortgage because he wanted to pay it off in half the time, and also had Florida prepaid college accounts for his children, Stephens said. A trained chef, Mingo would pick up restaurant shifts and install boat batteries in his off hours, too.
Mercedes Dericho said her maternal uncle loved to travel around the Caribbean, and that hewas present in the lives of his relatives, attending birthday parties and christenings.
“He taught my brothers what it takes to be a man,” Dericho said. “He taught me to drive. He was my father figure.”
Mingo’s teenagers were too traumatized to attend their father’s funeral. His third child, an 11-year-old girl, was not in the car that night, Dericho said.
Police ask anyone with information about the killing to call Detective Leon Florez at 954-457- 1433⁄1400. Anonymous tips can be shared with Broward County Crime Stoppers, the organization that is offering the reward, at 954-493-8477.