AKRON, Ohio — A 73-year-old homeowner, Daniel McGown, stopped a man who was breaking into his house early Tuesday morning and held the intruder at gunpoint until police came.
Police have arrested one Thomas Gaffney, 51, of Akron.
They have charged him with burglary, a second-degree felony.
McGown reported to police that somebody started repeatedly ringing his doorbell around 5:15 in the morning at his home in the 600 block of Crosby Street.
Not An Easy Target:
A retired lawyer, McGown had a 9mm handgun under his pillow.
Seconds after the doorbell stopped, he heard a man’s voice yelling–this time from inside his home.
He grabbed the gun, and cautiously made his way from his second-floor bedroom down to the main floor.
When he reached the living room downstairs, he saw a strange man standing in the dark.
He pointed the gun at him and demanded the invader hold still.
“I pointed the pistol at him and said, ‘If you don’t move, I won’t shoot you.’ He said, ‘Don’t shoot me! Don’t call the police!”
Only then did McGown realized he left his cell phone upstairs in his bedroom.
He told the man to walk in front of him–still at gunpoint–so they could go collect his cell phone to call police.
“I told him to get down on his knees in the front of the bed, lay down on it with his arms out and I called police and they showed up and here he was,” McGown said.
Why did he have a gun under his pillow?
Police reported that only a few days earlier, while McGown had been out of town, thieves had burglarized his home.
The thieves had made off with guns, ammunition, and some laptops.
His mind logically assumed this could be the same person, back for more of his property.
McGown said, “If he had reached his hand towards a pocket or something where I thought that he might have had one of the guns that went away last night or the night before, then I might have been tempted to do that.”
Cleared of Charges:
The authorities have said that Mr. McGown does have his concealed-carry permit and will not face any charges for acting in self-defense.
“My home was being violated and here was a guy doing it in my presence. Here’s the guy, and I just wanted to make him stop doing that,” he said.
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