WILLIAM BLAKEMORE
 

WILLIAM MORRIS BLAKEMORE, 48, of Memphis, City of Memphis firefighter, died of a gunshot wound Wednesday while responding to a call at 4217 Germantown Road S. Services will be at noon Tuesday at Christ United Methodist Church with burial in Elmwood. Memphis Funeral Home Poplar Chapel has charge. He was a member of Grace United Methodist Church. Mr. Blakemore leaves a daughter, Courtney Jamel Blakemore; two sons, William Morris Blakemore Jr. and Nickcolus Dewayne Blakemore, and his father, Joe H. Blakemore, all of Memphis; six sisters, Joann Walker of Chicago, and Rosalind Okwuosah, Deborah Chalmers, Carolyn Blakemore, Teressa Blakemore and Toni Woodson, all of Memphis, and a brother, Larry Lacy of Memphis. The family requests that any memorials be sent to Firefighters Burn Center or St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
Commercial Appeal, The (Memphis, TN) - May 26, 2004


 

WILLIAM BLAKEMORE, March 08, 2000,  Private assigned to Engine 39, was one of two firefighters and a Sheriff's Deputy, who died of gunshot wounds received after arriving on the scene of a house fire, at 4217 Germantown Road.

Memphis: The Victims
Firefighters turn inward in 'senseless' family losses

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.

AP Photo

 SHNS Photo by Shoun A. Hill / The Commercial Appeal

Memphis firefighters console one another following an ambush at a house fire Wednesday
 

 

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 (It was Tech 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.''