'Disbelief. Stunned. Numb': Friend remembers murdered B.C. Mountie

When Jeannette Martin and a partner decided to host an online Gratitude and Appreciation Summit in 2020, Ridge Meadows RCMP Const. Rick O’Brien was invited to speak.

Martin had gotten to know the Mountie through his wife Nicole Longacre-O’Brien, who owns a business in Langley.

“They show up so much in the community, they show up so much for their family,” said Martin of the couple, who were married in October 2018.

They each had three children from previous relationships, and blended their families together. “They were the definition of love, of finding love a second, third time, maybe fourth time, and they were the definition of love,” added Martin.

During Const. O’Brien’s 10 minute speech for the summit, he said he first dreamed of becoming a police officer as a teenager, and finally pursued a job with the RCMP in his mid-40s. He praised his wife for supporting him through the gruelling training process, and added his family made him feel gratitude every day.

“He wanted to talk about the people who got him to where he was at that particular moment in time, which was three years ago. He shared the journey of his ups and downs through his struggles of becoming a police officer late in life,” said Martin, who shared video of O’Brien’s speech with CTV News. “He was so gung-ho, very humble during his talk and incredibly vulnerable.”

When Martin learned O’Brien was shot and killed while serving a search warrant in Coquitlam on Friday morning, she was stunned.

“I just sat for 45 minutes in my car. I couldn’t move,” said Martin. “I couldn’t believe it, it was WTF. No, not Nicole. Not, not that family. No! Not possible. Disbelief. Stunned. Numb.”

On Monday, fellow officers came to the Ridge Meadows RCMP detachment to lay flowers and sign a book of condolences for the 51-year-old’s wife and kids.

“Nicole posted a picture of them in their red serge, saying ‘I’m broken into a million pieces, I do not know when I will be able to pull them back together. I will get to all your messages.’ See, that is Nicole, thinking of everybody else out here, all these messages she has to follow up on,” said Martin.

The man charged with killing O’Brien, 25-year-old Nicholas Bellemare, will appear in Port Coquitlam court on Oct. 3.