THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 1, 1997 TAG: 9701010239
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MIKE MATHER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 59 lines
Police officer Todd Coleman embarked on a family visit Sunday, bringing with him his gun and badge. A day later, that was all he had left.
Coleman's uniforms and all his police equipment were destroyed in a fire Sunday night that ravaged the three-story apartment building where he lived with his wife, Nancy.
Worse, Coleman said Tuesday, he returned to cold stares because neighbors and a man who described himself as Coleman's best friend wrongly identified his apartment as the source of the fire.
These mistaken statements were printed Tuesday in The Virginian-Pilot and were repeated by other media.
Initially, fire officials did not dispute the best friend's account. On Tuesday, however, a spokesman said Coleman was wrongly linked to the blaze at Latitudes Apartments, a complex visible from the First Colonial Road exit of the Virginia Beach-Norfolk Expressway.
The blaze started across the hall from Coleman's apartment after someone put fireplace ashes into a plastic bucket, then stored the bucket on a wooden deck.
The embers ignited a fire that wiped out the building's third floor and most of the second. Fire officials said the building damage alone would reach $1 million.
Like all of Coleman's third-floor neighbors, he and his wife lost everything, including their cats.
``It's a tragedy what happened, and nothing will change that,'' said Coleman, a 29-year-old officer who is finishing his first year of street duty. ``Everyone is having a hard enough time with this and I don't want them to look at me and think I was the one who caused this. I'm sure the person who caused it feels bad enough.''
Fire investigators will not identify the tenant who apparently caused the fire.
Like many other residents, the Colemans did not have renter's insurance. Coleman said he was waiting for an appraisal of his wife's valuable flute before completing the insurance paperwork. Fortunately, Coleman said, his wife brought the instrument with her on the trip, so it was spared.
But the couple did lose a 22-year-old watercolor portrait of Coleman as a child. He recently had the portrait framed and gave it to his wife a day before the fire.
Coleman's colleagues in the Police Department are helping him and his wife get back on their feet, and the officer should have new uniforms and equipment by the weekend. Then he will return to his patrol duties in the Second Precinct based at the Oceanfront.
The Red Cross is accepting cash donations on behalf of all fire victims. Donations can be dropped off at any Red Cross office or mailed to the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund, 611 W. Brambleton Ave., Norfolk, Va. 23510.
Many businesses have donated money and goods to the apartment residents. The Red Cross said Tuesday it has already spent more than $12,000 on vouchers for the victims. The agency said it expects the fire will cost several thousand more.
``We're the same as everyone else, no different,'' Coleman said. ``We lost everything. We'll start over.''
KEYWORDS: FIRES