Willie Dwight Craft was a 48-year-old District Chief with the Jackson Fire Department who was killed in a targeted attack on April 24, 1996. The shooter, a fellow firefighter identified in reports as Kenneth Tornes, first shot his estranged wife at her home and then went to the downtown fire department headquarters armed with a rifle. Tornes moved from office to office and fired specifically at supervisors; District Chief Willie Craft was one of four department leaders killed at the station that day. Two other supervisors were wounded during the assault.

Tornes fled after the shootings and led police on a high-speed chase that ended in a shopping center parking lot in nearby Ridgeland, where a shootout with officers followed and an officer was wounded. Tornes was captured, later convicted of the murders and sentenced to death; he died on death row from a blood clot on April 9, 2000. Does anyone have memories of Willie Craft or information about his work at the department to share?