Interrupted Burglary Ends After Standoff

Tou Cheng resists arrest, suspected of being under the influence

Humboldt Sentinel
3/5/09
By Sentinel Staff

EUREKA -- A distraught man who held off police for two hours as they talked him down from the roof of a house has been jailed for attempted burglary and drug charges.

Tou Cheng, a 28-year-old Eureka resident, was booked into the Humboldt County Correctional Facility on charges of attempted burglary, resisting arrest and being under the influence of a controlled substance.

At about 4:52 a.m. Wednesday Eureka police officers were sent to a house on the 300 block of 15th Street, where a caller said a someone was trying to force their way through the back door. As the homeowner spoke to the dispatcher, the burglar tried to get in by breaking a window.

When officers arrived Cheng fled to the roof and held them off with a large piece of pipe, threatening to jump from the roof if they tried to arrest him.

As two sergeants talked with Cheng he threatened several more times to jump, at one point running and sliding to a stop at the edge of the steep rain-slick roof.

City Ambulance staff and Eureka fire personnel were also on hand as Cheng finally came down a ladder to give himself up to officers.