Geriatric gunfighters

Press, 9 May 1981, Page 9

Geriatric gunfighters

NZPA-ReuferCleveland, Ohio Two old men had a gunfight to settle an old grudge in the hallway of an apartment house, but all 12 bullets went astray, police said. Each brandishing an antique pistol, the men, one aged 77 and the other aged 76, stood just 1.5 metres apart during the duel, the officers said. The Cleveland police believed that they missed because one needed a cane to prop himself up while firing and the other had trouble

seeing because of glaucoma. The two, who lived across the hall from each other in the building, began quarrelling in the hallway about 11 a.m. On Wednesday. They went back into their apartments and came out with the guns, the police said. Each fired six shots as a woman walked by. “I was dead,” said the woman, who was not injured. “I was standing right nexct to them. I started running down the hall to get away/’ Residents called the police,

who took the pair to headquarters. "There were bullet holes above, bullet holes down and bullet holes all over the hallway,” Detective Tony Zalar said. The men were released after both signed papers saying they did not wish to press charges against the other, and therefore their names were not released. The 76-year-old man said they were fighting over a grudge “that goes back.” The police kept the guns.