Police: 70-year-old woman shoots alleged burglar during home invasion

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — She may be 70-years-old, but Saturday morning Maxine Thompson of the West Poplar section of Philadelphia proved she is one great grandma you don’t want to mess with.

Around 4:30 a.m. she heard someone, who turned out to be a 43-year-old man, breaking in her back window.

“Next thing I know I could tell he was inside my house and he was running up the steps,” says Maxine Thompson.

She realized this was a home invasion and she was prepared to fight back.

Thompson explains that she took the gun she inherited from her mother off of the nightstand, “I snatched my gun and I started shooting at him and he ran down the steps and I ran down the step behind him and started shooting some more and he jumped out that window back the way he came in.”



She’s got bullet holes and blood in her home –but her attacker made out worse.

The man suffered 1 graze wound to the upper left arm during the break-in.

After the shooting, the man ran a couple of blocks to Broad and Brown Streets to a car wash.

Scared and bleeding, the would-be burglar called 911 to report being shot.

Police arrested the man and took him to Hahnemann University Hospital where he’s in stable condition with a gunshot wound to his upper arm.

Maxine Thompson is said to be very shaken, but otherwise okay.

She is a mother of a police officer.

And to anyone that would ever think of breaking into a senior’s home, Maxine Thompson has a message.

“They better think twice… Especially if she a Thompson.”

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