ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, November 1, 1996 TAG: 9611010053
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DIANE STRUZZI STAFF WRITER
BUT JON THOMPSON ADMITS he took a big risk when he took on an intruder Monday night.
Jon Thompson says he isn't the type of guy to start a fight. But he's not the kind to back away from one, either.
He proved it Monday: Armed with a baseball bat, he chased down a man police later charged with burglarizing his duplex.
About 9:15 p.m., Thompson and his girlfriend returned to his Southwest Roanoke County home and found the door to his duplex open.
A camcorder and computer - early Christmas presents from his parents - were gone. So were a cell phone, a miniature TV and his stereo.
But a console television in his living room remained, and Thompson knew the burglar would be back.
He took a baseball bat from the back seat of his girlfriend's car and told her to leave.
Then he called police, telling a dispatcher to send a cruiser to the 4100 block of Cresthill Drive, just off Garst Mill Road. Thompson asked that the officer approach without lights or sirens - "Because I'm telling you, this guy is coming back," he told the dispatcher.
"Then I see the guy by the stone wall, walking quickly," Thompson said. "I said, 'Send the cop now! He's in the house! Send a cop now! I got to go!'''
The intruder, wearing loosely tied sneakers, pushed his way through the front door and walked into Thompson's living room.
"Man, the adrenaline was going," Thompson said. "I yelled, 'Freeze! I got a gun.' And he takes off like a rabbit. I don't know what possessed me, but I took off after him."
The man fled so fast, he jumped out of his sneakers, leaving one on Thompson's driveway and another just down the road. Once outside, Thompson - a 30-year-old rugby player - didn't flinch. He screamed at the man again.
"I yelled, 'Freeze I've got a gun, I'm going to shoot you,''' Thompson said. "He turns around and sees I don't have a gun and takes off again.
"Initially I was scared, scared, scared. Then I switched to, 'You bthis is my house.' And that pme off. It made me mad."
At Garst Mill Road, the man grabbed a tree limb and hit Thompson on the left side of his head, just under his eye. Thompson whacked him with the baseball bat and the man ran again.
"All this time I'm yelling, 'Stop. Get on your knees. Just get down. Get down,''' Thompson said. "He leaned up against the bank and turned. He wouldn't do it. He says, 'I know where your stuff is man, but I didn't do it.' And I'm over him with a bat."
The man pointed to a car leaving the Mews Apartments. Thompson turned to look. The man came at him.
"I whacked him again in the left arm," Thompson said. "I heard the snap."
When police arrived they found Thompson and Edward Michael Mitchell Jr., 32, of Northwest Roanoke on Garst Mill Road, not far from Thompson's home. Mitchell suffered a broken left arm and cuts and bruises to his face.
Police also discovered that Thompson's next-door neighbor had been burglarized. A basement window had been jimmied and some tools had been taken.
Police charged Mitchell with two counts of burglary, two counts of grand larceny, and malicious wounding. Mitchell did not have a knife, but he did have a screwdriver tucked into the rear waistband of his pants. He remained in Salem-Roanoke County Jail Thursday on $15,000 bond.
Police have not recovered Thompson's belongings and are still looking for two other suspects from Monday night's incident - a man and a woman. But Roanoke County Detective Chris Nielsen said he holds out little hope that the pair will be found, since the suspect in custody isn't talking.
For his part, Thompson has had some second thoughts about what he did.
"I'm real concerned about someone reading this and saying 'I'll do that,''' he said. "What I did was real stupid. It was luck that he didn't have a gun."
Still, when the story made the rounds at the Roanoke County Police Department the next day, several officers who play rugby with Thompson told him that he won one for the good guys.
One officer put the moral of the story this way: "Don't steal from a rugby player."
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: DON PETERSEN STAFF Jon Thompson talks about his Mondayby CNBnight confrontation in Southwest Roanoke County. color