Tragic Run: Last 9 Memphis LODDs Result of Criminal Acts

Firefighters Trent Kirk and Charles Zachary became part of a grim trend in Memphis when they died this week battling an alleged arsonist's blaze.

The last nine Memphis firefighters to die at fire scenes perished as a result of arson or other criminal acts - a morbid record running back to 1987.

The tally includes seven deaths at the hands of arsonists or alleged arsonists and the gun slayings of two firefighters responding to a fire in 2000.

"Enough is enough,'' said Terry Oldham, vice president of the local fire union, the Memphis Fire Fighters Association.

The string of deaths is one reason Oldham supports the death penalty for Anthony Paul Shaw, the Family Dollar store manager charged with setting Sunday's fire. Prosecutors say Shaw set fire to the store in Frayser to hide his theft of cash from the store safe.

The International Association of Fire Fighters has written U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft asking him to seek the death penalty for Shaw.

The rare plea comes as families, friends and colleagues prepare to bury Kirk and Zachary, who died of injuries suffered when the store's roof collapsed.

"We don't allow people to see our feelings a lot,'' said Oldham, who cited pent-up grief and frustration as a force behind the letter to Ashcroft. "But I know Memphis is upset. We're tired of dealing with this.''

National fire prevention experts contacted Wednesday said they were unaware of any studies ranking the number of arson-related firefighter deaths by city or state.

Locally, officials said that while they were unaware of the precise length and detail of Memphis's string of criminal firefighter deaths, a stigma weighs on the city.

The string involves five separate acts of arson, according to public records and fire association archives.

Fire investigators concluded in 1987 that arson claimed Lt. Bobby G. Blackley, 47, who died when a wall collapsed at Design Spec Seating in South Memphis.

Authorities charged a 42-year-old transient with arson and murder. On Wednesday, Deputy Dist. Atty. James Challen said archives show the charges were later dropped, but authorities could not locate records detailing why.

Five years later, firefighters J. D. Hill and Joseph Boswell died when the roof collapsed at Pilgrims Hope Baptist Church in Frayser.

Drifter and parolee Michael Lee Allen was charged with the 1992 fire after he admitted breaking into the church and accidentally setting it ablaze. Allen, now 36, is serving a life sentence in the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kan.

Lt. Michael L. Mathis and Pvt. William E. Bridges died in 1994 fighting a fire at the Regis Towers Apartments, 750 Adams. Two civilians also died. Charles Edward Cortezie, the man convicted of setting the fire in retaliation against an ex-lover, died in prison in 1996, records show.

Lt. Javier Lerma and Pvt. William Blakemore were among four people shot to death at an arson fire scene in 2000. Authorities charged firefighter Frederick Williams, who has not been tried. He will receive mental health treatment until doctors determine whether he is competent to stand trial, Challen said.

"We can't dwell on it,'' Fire Department Chief of Emergency Operations Jim Price said of the string.

"That's a pretty tough thing to take when you lose a firefighter and then find out someone has started the fire intentionally. . . . But we still have a job to do. And we do it whether somebody started it or it was an accident.''

Among nonfatal incidents, records show few overall serious injuries in recent years for Memphis firefighters.

Since 1998 the department has incurred one broken leg, three heart attacks and 18 cases of serious smoke inhalation, said Concetta Harris, the department's occupational safety and health coordinator.

"The guys are pretty well trained," she said. "They know what to do.''