IT was news Lillieth Brown was obviously not prepared for. In fact, when she was told early yesterday morning that her husband, Detective Sergeant Edmund Brown, was shot dead on the job, she thought it was a prank.

“I couldn’t believe that my husband was dead, and that he was no more,” she told the Observer yesterday.

“It’s like my life went out and my light stopped shining. I still can’t come to grips. I am still hanging in limbo,” Brown said, adding that she still thinks “he will be coming home later”.

But Detective Sergeant Brown’s cold, lifeless body was lying at the Linstead Hospital where he died after being shot under his right eye and on his right arm by car thieves he had tried to apprehend near the Bog Walk roundabout in St Catherine shortly after 1:00 am.

According to the Constabulary Communication Network, Detective Sergeant Brown, who only two weeks ago was transferred to the Bog Walk Police Station from Spanish Town, was responding to a report that a car was stolen in that area.

His death ended his 25 years of service to the constabulary and brought to five, the number of policemen killed so far this year.

Mrs Brown, who was initially called to identify his body, but was eventually talked out of doing so by some of her husband’s colleagues, shared memories of her husband with the Observer yesterday.

“My husband was one of the most generous, loving and caring persons in the world,” she said. “The word ‘No’ was not in his vocabulary. He was always helpful and willing to lend a hand.”

“He was a hardworking and pleasant man who was willing to share his thoughts and experiences with others,” said Constable Georgia Nicholas of the Bog Walk Police Station.

“I called him ‘Daddy Brown’ because he was like a father to me,” said District Constable Ronald Stewart of the Spanish Town Police Station. “He was always willing to share his knowledge with us.”

Yesterday, National Security Minister Dr Peter Phillips said the detective sergeant’s death was a “stark reminder that the battle against the criminal elements that would disrupt our daily lives with their savage acts must be intensified”.

Phillips described Brown as a “veteran of the Jamaica Constabulary Force who provided unstinting and courageous service in the communities to which he was assigned”. He pledged his support for the joint military/police operation that was launched in the Bog Walk and Linstead areas yesterday to locate Brown’s killers.

Yesterday, the police high command posted a reward of $1 million for information leading to the arrest of the killers, while Police Commissioner Francis Forbes called for the co-operation of all law-abiding citizens to ensure that there is no safe haven for “malcontents whose deviant actions are tearing at the fabric of civilised society”.

The Opposition spokesman on national security, Derrick Smith, urged the police to apply all its “professional capabilities to apprehend all the suspects” in Brown’s killing and said: “An example must be made of the perpetrators, as the brazen killing of officers who work with diligence to ensure that the laws of the land are enforced must not go unpunished.”

Detective Sergeant Brown is survived by his wife, two children — a son and a daughter — and three grandchildren.