Woman shoots intruder in her North Philadelphia home, police say

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- Police say a woman jumped into action when a suspect broke into her North Philadelphia home.

It happened on the 1300 block of Poplar Street around 4 a.m.

It was quite the morning for Maxine Thompson to say the very least.

Police say around 4 a.m. a suspect broke into her home on Poplar Street.

But little did the suspect know, Thompson, the mother of a Philadelphia police officer and grandmother was ready to defend herself.

She told Action News, how she did it.

"I was sleeping and I heard somebody was trying to get into my house. And at first I thought I was hearing things then I jumped up and went to the window and I said who is that trying to get into my house," said Maxine Thompson of North Philadelphia.

Thompson says the suspect got in, breaking in through a back window and then came upstairs after her.

But that would turn out to be a mistake for the suspect.

"I reached down and grabbed my gun he was at my bedroom door. And I shot at him a couple times. He ran down the steps and I ran down the steps behind him. I shot some more and he jumped out the window and he jumped out the same window he came in and he jumped back out," she said.

Police say after the suspect took off he came down to Broad and Brown and jumped on the roof of a car wash. And that's when the suspect called the police."

Detectives say when they got to the car wash, they found the suspect.

He suffered a graze wound to his upper left arm.

Investigators listened to his story and he was taken into custody.

Back at the scene, we spoke with Thompson's next door neighbor, Johnnie Tobias.

She says to get out of their yard and over their fence, the suspect would have had to climb over her shed.

So she took a look and says that's when she knew the suspect was wounded.

"I was just looking out what disturbance there was to the back of my house and that's when I noticed the blood on top of my shed," said Tobias.

She adds she's happy Thompson did what she did.

And has a message for the suspect.

"Get a job and you won't have to be intruding in on innocent people like this," said Tobias.

Thompson says this was the first time she ever used her gun.

As for the suspect, he's at Hahnemann University Hospital.

There is no word yet on what charges the suspect may face.

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