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The shooting occurred about 1 a.m. Tuesday. White said he usually is asleep at that late hour, but the night before someone had broken a window at his house.

When he began hearing thumps Tuesday, White said he grabbed a rifle purchased years earlier from a friend and headed toward the sound.

It took three to four kicks from the outside before the door was forced in. A figure stepped from the shadows inside the house. That’s when White fired the only bullet he had loaded into the weapon.

The force jolted the intruder back, and apparently scared away accomplices.
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Police later told him the dead 18-year-old had a weapon of his own, White said.

“Obviously, he had other intentions as well,” White said. “Had he got in, there’s no telling what he would have done to us.”

White cares for his wife, who is recovering from two strokes and a heart attack. He can’t understand why his home was targeted — after all, White said, he’s not rich. He retired in 1993. He lives in a working-class neighborhood that has seen much better days.

Read more: http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2012/03/no_apologies_75-year-old_retir.html