84-Year-Old Salem Man Uses Cane To Fight Off Burglar

SALEM (CBS) - A World War II veteran who came face-to-face with a burglar used his cane to scare him off.

Leo Gagnon, 84, said he woke up to find a man rifling through the pockets of a pair of pants slung across a chair in his room.

"I said 'what the hell are you doing in here?'" Gagnon told WBZ-TV.

Gagnon immediately reached for the cane he keeps by his back door.

According to a Salem police report, Gagnon's neighbor saw a man pulling an air conditioning unit from the window.

When she asked what he was doing, the man replied, "I'm a relative and no one is answering the buzzer," before climbing through the window.

That neighbor called police.

Meanwhile, Gagnon took his cane and chased the intruder out the back door of the apartment he's lived in for 40 years.

Gagnon doesn't think the burglar got away with anything.

Police dusted the broken AC unit for prints and searched the area with a K-9 but didn't find the suspect, described as a young Hispanic male wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt.

"I looked at him good and if I ever see him any place, I'm going to get after him," said Gagnon.