He saw red. Monday evening, shortly after 6 p.m., a 77-year-old retiree who returned to his car in the Saint-Cyprien underground car park in Toulouse had the unpleasant surprise of finding it with a broken window.
He groans, stamps his feet, and by the time he takes in the damage, he hears another break in the glass which resonates in the deserted place. He guides himself by the noise and spots the thief who is continuing his work on another vehicle.
Listening only to his courage, the septuagenarian intervenes. When the intruder pulls out a gun to threaten him, he continues to stand up to him, jumping on him to try to make him drop his handgun. When a passerby, alerted by the cries of the retiree, comes to help, the job is done: the suspect is immobilized on the ground, his victim on the rope. According to a police source, the “traveler” is even bleeding from his face.
A known outsider in the neighborhood
This 52-year-old man, a misfit already known in the neighborhood and the police, was handed over to a patrol. The items stolen from the reckless retiree’s car were found on him, as was a child’s backpack stolen from the second wrecked vehicle.
The gun was in fact an air gun, but the septuagenarian self-defense enthusiast couldn’t have known that.