Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 8, 1992 TAG: 9203080018
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
When he traveled to New York City last weekend to poke around in some mean neighborhoods, the badge came in handy - sort of.
Cease is, in no particular order, the chief of police in Roanoke County and an incorrigible rail buff. As a job, he keeps the streets safe for decent human beings. As a passion, he restores old rail cars with fellow members of the Roanoke Valley Central Railroad.
In New York, Cease and a couple of chums were hunting spare rail-car parts.
They were scouring, with the railroad's permission, old cars headed for the scrap yard. One old railworker warned the scavengers to be careful when they combed the yards.
In Queens, you never know who's lurking where.
Cease inspected four cars without incident, plucking parts that would come in handy for a caboose restoration he's been working on.
He was in a passenger car, his fifth of the day, alone, sidling through the narrow hallway.
That's when a man lunged from a doorway wielding a metal pipe.
"I'd wandered into some poor guy's home," said Cease. "He was the homeowner and I was the burglar. He may have had more legal right to be there than I did."
Actually not. The man was a homeless squatter.
"He seemed a little bit emaciated, and very surprised to see me there," said Cease. It has probably been a good long while since anybody trudged through the passenger car - first-class accommodations for a hobo but pretty far from the beaten path for your average police chief.
"I beat a hasty retreat," said Cease, but he was fumbling all the while for his wallet - and his badge.
"I managed to get into the vestibule, where there was a little bit more room, and I flipped my badge out," said Cease. "I did keep my thumb over the part that said `Roanoke County' on it."
A Roanoke County police badge and $1.25 buys you a ride on a subway in New York. The badge doesn't mean diddly.
"If he'd have seen the Roanoke on the badge and challenged it, there wasn't a thing I could have done," said Cease.
But the bluff worked.
"This man had seen badges before," said Cease. "He put the pipe down."
Cease, who wasn't armed, told the man to leave the train car and to wait outside. The chief assured him he'd come looking for train parts, and wouldn't disturb the vagrant's personal belongings.
"He really got concerned about that," said Cease.
The man did wait outside, occasionally banging on a window to proudly report to Cease that he was still where he was supposed to be.
In the end, Cease had to consult his attacker.
"The guy asked me what part I was looking for, and I told him," said Cease. "He showed me right to it, and I took it and left."
"I guess you could say I got mugged in Queens," said Cease. "But really, I was the trespasser."
by CNB