CINDY WOLF and TONI LEPESKA
Reprinted with Permission, The Commercial Appeal
On any other day, firefighter William Blakemore might have been cooking spaghetti in the firehouse or stopping by to check on his 81-year-old fishing buddy.
SHNS Photo by Shoun A. Hill / The Commercial Appeal
Memphis firefighters console one another following an ambush at a house fire Wednesday
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But Wednesday, Blakemore, 48, who was normally stationed on Raines Road, was working out of the Hickory Hill fire station when he and other firefighters responded to a house fire at 4217 Germantown Road S.
A man, who police said was also a firefighter, came out of the house and opened fire with a shotgun, killing Blakemore, fellow firefighter Lt. Javier Lerma and Shelby County Sheriff's Deputy Rupert Peete. The suspect's wife was found dead in the house.
Family and neighbors described Blakemore and Lerma as men who loved their families and loved working in their yards.
"He was out playing football (Tuesday)," said one of Lerma's Cordova-area neighbors, Diane Fiveash. "He was playing with the kids."
The 41-year-old firefighter passed his freshly tilled flower beds the next morning to report to work at 7 a.m. He did not get back home to plant.
Lerma's father, Martiniano, also a firefighter, died fighting a two-alarm blaze in South Memphis in 1977.
Firefighters from the fire station on Riverdale, which responded to the fire call, mourned like a bereaved family Wednesday.
"They're very upset. We live together. We eat together," said Steve Raney, a fire chief, Wednesday afternoon after driving a psychologist to Fire Station No. 55.
The station is in the city's satellite office on Riverdale, south of Raines. The office, which also includes a police substation and mayor's service center, was opened when Hickory Hill was annexed Dec. 31, 1998.
Scott Miller, 33, was one of two firefighter paramedics called to the station on Riverdale Road from the airport's air crash unit to fill in for the slain firefighters.
"Everybody's real upset about it," Miller said. Many of the firefighters at the station stayed behind closed doors throughout the afternoon.
"They always train us for stuff like this, that you have to expect the unexpected," Miller said.
"You're just vulnerable out there, and anything can happen."
WILLIAM BLAKEMORE
Blakemore was a firefighter for more than 20 years in the Memphis Fire Department.
He often substituted at other stations whenever he was needed, said his fiancee Evelyn Rooks.
This was his first time at the Hickory Hill station.
Blakemore's family said he was preparing for spring, recently turning over the soil in his garden. He planned to raise spices and tomatoes this year, Rooks said.
Blakemore was also awaiting the birth of his first grandchild, a baby girl his daughter Courtney was expecting in two months, said his ex-wife Beverly Blakemore. He loved his children and liked to tell corny jokes, she said.
"He was a good man that I never knew to do one bad thing,'' said friend Kissie McNeil, 81, who regarded Blakemore as a son.
She met him when he was 12 years old, a friend her son Robert Love brought home from school. The boys attended Booker T. Washington High School and remained friends until Love was killed by an ex-girlfriend about 20 years ago.
"We fished all the time,'' McNeil said. "He always came by to do things for me or we'd go fishing.''
Blakemore's feet hit the floor every day at 5:30 a.m., Rooks said, whether he was working or not.
He'd take their mixed-breed dog, CeeCee, walking and then go fishing, if he didn't have to work.
Blakemore's sons William Blakemore Jr., 25, and Nickcolus, 21, described their father as strict, attentive and reliable.
"We didn't have to wait on him to do anything,'' said William Jr. "When he said he was going to do something, he did it. We had a lot of respect for him. He was a great man.''
JAVIER LERMA
Danny L. Todd, vice president of the 14th District International Association of Fire Fighters, said he believed Lerma was inspired by his father's example.
An Oct. 16, 1977, story in The Commercial Appeal about Martiniano Lerma quoted Capt. J. C. Smith describing the elder Lerma as "a fine man" and "a jovial person."
The same could be said of Lerma's son, according to Todd.
"He was one of those guys who treated everybody like he wanted to be treated. Everyday life with him was that way. That's the way he carried himself."
"I was in charge of training when Javier joined the department, and he was one of the nicest kids you ever wanted to meet,'' said retired Memphis firefighter Richard Adelman.
Wednesday afternoon, Lerma's neighbors situated themselves across the street from his house, the house always decorated for special events like Christmas.
Lerma's wife, Caryn, a pharmacist, preferred not to talk.
The family, which also includes Meredith, 3, and Josh, a kindergartner, moved to the neighborhood near Chimneyrock Elementary in 1995.
"You know, he made golf clubs," remarked neighbor Karen O'Byrne.
"He's supposed to be a great golf player."
Lerma's next-door neighbor, Tim Vandermeersch, said, "He usually shot in the 70s. He was good at Ping-Pong too. He was good at everything I know that he did. He loves his yard. He's had the prettiest yard in the cove. That's how I knew how to take care of my yard. He'd fertilize his yard; I'd fertilize my yard.
``He worked almost all day in that yard," Vandermeersch said staring at Lerma's trimmed lawn and blooming Bradford pear. ``It's just so strange."
At a traditional Ash Wednesday service, Msgr. Peter P. Buchignani, pastor of St. Francis of Assissi Catholic Church in Cordova, asked the parish to pray for Lerma's family and others touched by the shooting.
Lerma and his family attended the church.
"My heart immediately went to his mother, who had been through this before," Buchignani said and described Lerma as unassuming and laid-back.
"Every time I saw him, he had a smile on his face. It's just a senseless, senseless tragedy."
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Memphis: The Victims