Fellow officers remember missing SMU Officer Mark McCullers

DALLAS - Family, friends and hundreds of fellow officers gathered Thursday for a memorial service for the Southern Methodist University police officer who was swept away by flood waters.

The service for Officer Mark McCullers was at SMU’s McFarlin Auditorium and included a 21-gun salute outside. Tributes and messages were also placed on a police SUV on campus.

McCullers received police and military honors at the service and his wife tearfully described how proud she is of his accomplishments.

“My amazing Mark never believed in meeting expectations. That was never enough for him. He always wanted to exceed expectations, to work harder to do more to make any environment he was in better, and safer and more effective,” Tiffany McCullers said.

Mark McCullers was working an off-duty security job at a construction site during a storm earlier this month when floodwaters came up quickly around his car. Grainy surveillance video suggests he may have gotten out of the vehicle just as it washed into Turtle Creek.

Divers found McCullers’ Dodge Charger in the creek, but they have yet to find his body. The search has moved to the Trinity River and is being conducted by the Texas Game Warden’s office.

The veteran officer leaves behind a wife and six children.