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William L. Walker, right, shakes hands with Mayor Frank Jackson on Aug. 26, the day he was promoted to lieutenant. Walker was gunned down in the driveway of his East Side home Sunday. John J. Donohoe, center, was also promoted to lieutenant that day.

(Chuck Crow, The Plain Dealer)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Lt. William L. Walker wasn't just any firefighter.

“He was a firefighter’s firefighter,” Frank Szabo, president of Cleveland Firefighters Local 93 said. “He always put everyone else's needs ahead of his own.”

Walker, a 15-year veteran in the Cleveland Fire Department, was gunned down in the driveway of his Lampson Road home at about 8:30 p.m. Sunday. Cleveland Police continue to investigate, but have not arrested any suspects.

Walker, 45, joined the department in March of 1998. He was a member of the department’s elite Rescue Squad 4, the most highly trained firefighters skilled in the most demanding rescues – high-angle and rope-line rescues. When the merger of the fire department and the EMS services was announced, Walker was tapped to oversee quality assurance in the department’s EMT office and the EMS.

“That was a very difficult assignment,” said Local 93 secretary Michael Norman. “Will earned a lot of respect for being willing to step up into that position.”

Norman and Local 93 vice president Thomas Lally remembered Walker as a personable, jovial man who loved his job – whether it was fighting fires or teaching classes in the Fire Training Academy.

“A lot of those classes can be pretty dry,” Lally said. “Will always found a way to make it interesting.”

Walker was promoted to the rank of lieutenant in August, in a ceremony in the Mayor's Red Room.



Szabo said Walker’s positive attitude had a way of turning the worst news into motivation.

“This is a guy who would read the paper and take away what’s positive, and ask himself, ‘Who can we serve today?’” Szabo said. “He would give you the shirt off his back.”

Speaking at a press conference Monday afternoon, Cleveland Fire spokesman Larry Gray said Walker was "dedicated and devoted firefighter."

"He was a great asset to the division. He was very well respected and well liked by members of his division,” Gray said.

Interim Fire Chief Patrick Kelley said Walker was "an outstanding employee" and will be missed.

Szabo said the department will provide a critical incident stress debriefing, and while it will be open to the entire department, it will be especially targeted to Engine 31 and the first responders that treated a colleague and a mentor with multiple gunshot wounds to the chest.

Walker was also a Masonic Leader in the Free Masons, and was recently married in July. He is survived by his wife and two children. Calls to phone numbers listed for possible family members were not immediately returned.

Szabo said the union is working to get Walker's pension in his family's name, and said the thoughts and prayers of the entire fire department are with his family.

“This is a sad day for the Cleveland Fire Department and for the people of Cleveland,” Lally said.