By Brian Skoloff
Associated Press
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press
ROYAL PALM BEACH, Fla. — The wife of a paramedic killed when a gunman went on a shooting rampage inside a Wendy’s remembered her husband Thursday as a man with an infectious smile who would help anyone in need, and a jokester with a quick wit.
“I want to stand here and tell you all the amazing qualities about my husband. It would take an eternity,” Michele Vazquez said during a news conference outside Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue Station 28, where the slain man served.
“It’s going to take a lot of time to heal. To go into public places and to even leave my home has been very difficult,” Vazquez said. “I depend on him for everything, and I was very spoiled, spoiled rotten. He put everyone first. His smile ... is totally infectious. He will make you smile just by looking at him.”
Lt. Rafael Vazquez, 42, was killed Monday when Alburn Edward Blake entered the Wendy’s in suburban West Palm Beach during the lunch rush and opened fire. The 60-year-old handyman and landscaper shot Vazquez first as he stood at the counter, authorities said.
Blake then shot four customers before killing himself. Blake and Vazquez died on the scene.
The wounded are all recovering at hospitals.
Michele Vazquez was at the restaurant with her husband and their 4-year-old son when the shooting broke out. They had just finished eating and left, when Rafael Vazquez went back in to exchange a promotional toy his son got with his meal. He was dead within seconds, while his wife and child ducked for cover behind cars in the parking lot.
Authorities have still not determined a motive, but said Blake was having minor financial problems. He owed several hundred dollars on his car and was paying more than $600 a month in child support to an ex-girlfriend whom he had a child with.
An autopsy this week, unsurprisingly, ruled Blake’s death a suicide and Vazquez the victim of homicide. Results from toxicology tests on Blake could take weeks.
No one had yet claimed his body, which remained at the medical examiner’s office Thursday.
Michele Vazquez said she is trying to comprehend why Blake killed her husband, but noted that “depression is a really difficult thing to understand.”
“The depression with this man must have been great. I can’t forgive him yet. I’m still angry, but I also know he has a family that is just as confused and angry as I am,” she said. “This needs to stop. The tragedies need to stop. No more families need to go through this.”
Aside from the 4 year old, the couple have four other children between them from prior relationships.
“I thank God every day for giving me the 13 years that I had with him,” Vazquez said.
Capt. Ernst Muller, a colleague of Vazquez’s who was coincidentally inside the same Wendy’s when the shooting occurred, described a chaotic scene and a gunman who had “a blank, scared look” on his face.
“I was just getting ready to start my meal. At that time, I heard three gunshots in rapid succession. I looked up and I saw the gunman standing there with his arm outstretched firing at random,” Muller said. “I immediately ducked to the floor.”
Muller said he counted shots and waited for Blake to reload, then grabbed a couple of customers and darted out the door.
“As a fire department, we’re healing day by day,” he said.
A funeral for Vazquez was set for Friday. The fire department will pay the expenses. However, the state will ultimately determine whether to classify Vazquez’s death as “on-duty,” which would bring his family greater benefits, since he was on a lunch break from training at the time of the shooting and was out of uniform.