By Ron Hayes
Palm Beach Post
Copyright 2008 Palm Beach Post
 Photo courtesy of The Palm Beach Post Palm Beach Fire-Rescue escorts the body of Lt. Rafael Vazquez during a memorial service Friday in Fla. Vazquez was killed during a restaurant shooting Monday. |
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Shortly after 10:30 Friday morning, 10 Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue workers in full dress uniforms carried the casket of Lt. Rafael “Ray” Vazquez from the Dorsey-E. Earl Smith Memory Gardens to an antique ladder truck, emblazoned with the number 2928.
About 50 uniformed officers from the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office and the police departments of West Palm Beach, Lake Clarke Shores and Palm Springs - the agency where Vazquez’ widow, Michele, is a corporal - mounted motorcycles.
Two firefighters stood at the back of the open truck, each with a white-gloved hand on the back of Vazqquez’ casket, draped in an American flag.
The motorcade of a few dozen vehicles traveled up Kirk Road and past Fire-Rescue Station 33 toward the Cruzan Amphitheater, where more than 500 family, friends, colleagues and strangers were gathered to honor Vazquez — a husband, a father, a firefighter, and a man who died in the simple act of being kind to a child.
Vazquez, 42, had returned to the Wendy’s restaurant near Military Trail and Belvedere Road on Monday to exchange a free toy for his 4-year-old son, Adrian, after the boy noticed it was one he already had. Vazquez, the father of five, was standing in line when police say Alburn Blake, 60, opened fire with a hand gun, killing the 15-year fire-rescue veteran and wounding four others before committing suicide.
At the amphitheater, Tony Fasco, a lieutenant for Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue and Vazquez’ partner for six months when they worked at Battalion 4 station in Delray Beach last year, roamed the area near the stage in dark sunglasses, wearing his dress uniform.
Fasco said he and others have received counseling and are supporting one another as they grieve. “My mind’s been flooded,” he said. “He always talked about this family and his brotherhood.”
When the piano music ends and the ceremony begins, it is both somber and celebratory. Vazquez’ death is mourned; his life is praised.
At 11:20 a.m., a silence lasting nearly ten minutes ends as a black sedan and two fire trucks draped in purple and black cloth pull up. Everyone stands for the family.
Drums and bagpipes sound, signalling that the funeral is beginning. Vazquez’s widow, Michele, walks in, supported by men on each side. Tissue dangles from her left hand. She looks forward, her eyes fixed straight ahead. Behind her is a sea of family, walking slowly with solemn faces and teary eyes. Daughter Tiffany carries 4-year-old Adrian.
Vazquez’ friends and colleagues step to the microphone to remember and honor him.
“This was a tragic event where irrational violence took Ray from us,” Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue Chief Herman Brice said. He talked about Vazquez’s determination and love for his job.
Vazquez could “save lives of people other medics would’ve written off,” fire-rescue Lt. Pete Wallwork said.
“Ray was my best friend, but I wasn’t his. It wasn’t a lack of love from Ray, but because Ray was everybody’s best friend,” he said.
Fire-rescue Lt. Mark Knickerbocker said that Vazquez helped him through his father’s death, because he had recently lost his own family.
He was the one everyone in his family came to when they needed something fixed, he said. And he was a smooth dresser, just like his daughter Tiffany, Knickerbocker said:
“He’s probably laughing at some of you for what you’ve chosen to wear today.”
After he spoke, Knickerbocker asked everyone to stand and applaud for the life of his friend, Ray Vazquez.
Shortly before noon, a guitarist sang Amazing Grace, as Rafael Vazquez Jr. huddled with family on stage, crying behind sunglasses, promising to make his dad proud.
He said he wants to be a firefighter, just like his dad.
“I made a promise to him that I would work out and keep going until I make it into the fire academy. ... I love my dad,” he said, as men in the audience hung their heads low, and many wiped tears from their eyes.
Pastor Jonathan Bonar of Christ Fellowship Church said Vazquez’s children told him their favorite Christmas was when the family didn’t have any money, but they were all so happy together.
The family played “Fear Factor” in the house, Bonar said, with the kids climbing the stairs in the dark. Vazquez stood at the top, he said, saying in a creepy voice: “complete your mission.”
Then hundreds of mourners at the amphitheatre bowed their heads and prayed along with fire-rescue chaplain Jeremy Hurd, who closed the service.
He urged others in the department to honor Vazquez by “being the person he was.”
Before the recession from the amphitheater, funeral home workers laid out orange, yellow and red roses, sunflowers, daisies, and baby’s breath flowers on either side of wheeled platform that would hold the casket.
Beside the arrangement stood a cross made of white ribbon and festooned with colorful flowers and a large heart-shaped wreath of red roses which held a red sash reading, “beloved husband” in gold letters.
Drums and pipes played as the casket was taken out.
The honor guard took the casket, draped in an American flag, into a fire truck. Michele closed her eyes, as men in uniform saluted one more time.
One man, walking past the casket whispered, “Goodbye, Ray.”
Staff writers Allyson Bird, Mitra Malek and Dianna Smith contributed to this story.