85-Year-Old Man Who Stood Up To Gunman 'Had Enough'

WAUKESHA, WI — With an armed robber behind him and a gun against his back, 85-year-old Wallace Van Duser decided he had enough.

It all started at about 7:30 p.m. Sunday evening when Van Ducer went out to close the garage door on his home on the 300 block of S. Comanche Lane.

The moment Van Duser went out to the garage, a man dressed head-to-toe in black and wearing a mask over his face came at him from behind with a gun.

"There was a guy hiding behind the corner of the garage," he said. "He came up behind me, put his hands on my shoulders and had a gun in his hand."

The robber demanded that Van Duser put his hands behind his back, but Van Duser was having none of it.

The suspect was inside the garage for a total of five minutes as he tried in vain to get Van Ducer to put his hands behind his back.

"He tried getting me to put my hands behind my back several times, and I said no several times," he said. "I asked him 'do you want money?' but he did not reply."

Van Duser told his assailant he was starting to feel like he was going to pass out. The suspect told him to go sit on the couch "and even started helping me a little bit," he said.

At that point, Van Duser struck back.

"I spun around and pushed him against the wall. I told him 'this is enough of this shit,'" Van Duser said. "He took off as fast as he could go. At the time I thought it was kind of funny."

Van Duser told Patch.com that he stands about six-foot-one and weighs about 217 pounds. He sized up his assailant further, and saw he had several inches on him and outweighed him by about 80 pounds.

"I used to be pretty tough, but I'm not as tough as I used to be," he said. "At the time, the scared feeling went away. I ran in the house and told my wife to call 911."

Van Duser said he had a couple minor injuries when he swung around and shoved his assailant against the wall, and aggravated a fresh eye surgery resulting in blood dripping down his face during the altercation.

"My doctor told me not to do anything strenuous," he said. I'm going back in there tomorrow."

Police responded to his house within minutes as the suspect fled the property and reportedly left the scene in a getaway car.

Police and the department's K-9 unit attempted to search for the armed man, but he was not located. Police are still looking for him and investigating the incident.

"The weird part of it was was that he seemed like a well-spoken guy," he said.

Van Duser's case is the rare incident in which a person takes their personal safety into their own hands. Waukesha police stopped short of saying "don't try this at home," but did reinforce that all actions have consequences and to weigh personal safety at all times.

"The federal government puts out the run, hide, fight training. It appears if the victim in this case choose to fight as much as an 85 year old could. There are dangers with everything we do in life, we just have to be mindful of the consequences of our actions regardless of our intentions," Waukesha police officials said to Patch.

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