Marine vet runs down, fights alleged burglar

Marine vet runs down, fights alleged burglar
The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Feb 11, 2008 14:49:20 EST

SALEM, Ore. — A Marine Corps veteran is sporting two black eyes and bruised ribs after he chased down and nearly caught a man he believed to have broke into his Salem home over the weekend.

Douglas Warden, 43, woke up around 1:20 a.m. Sunday and said he noticed a cell phone, coffee maker, some clothes and a picture of his daughter were missing. He stepped outside and saw a man duck around the corner of a nearby house and race down an alley.

Warden jumped two fences and tackled the man. Warden said he had the suspect in a choke hold, but the man tried to gouge his left eye out with his thumb, so he let him go.

“It was quite a fight,” said Warden, who served in the Marines for six years.

The man continued down the alley. Warden had seen a strange bicycle parked outside his house, so he figured the suspect would return. The man looped around the block, and Warden was waiting for him — this time with a shovel.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/02/ap_burglary_080211/