Burglar picks wrong boat to scavenge

When he got there, he found a man crouched down in the bottom of his boat, thoroughly rummaging through it. “He had every seat out. He was sorting through everything right and left. Eleven o-clock in the morning.”

Summers said to the man, “What the hell are you doing in my boat?”

The man, in his mid-20s, stumbled or took a step toward Summers, and that’s when Summers pulled the .38 he always carries in his pocket. “I shoved a pistol in his face and he left in a hurry.”

“I said, ‘Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!’ when I pointed it, I said, ‘Let’s don’t do this.’”

Summers taught karate for 30 years, but said, “I’m getting down the road and I’m not into mixing it up with a guy half my age.”

The man jumped out of the boat, hit his shoulder on a part of the barn, then clipped his head as he scrambled over a gate and escaped through the neighbor’s yard, screaming all the way.

Summers was never fearful during the confrontation, but did end up mirthful.

“By the time he jumped and bounced off a couple of things, I was laughing.”

The man was so afraid he left his backpack behind.

Summers was grateful he didn’t have to shoot.

“That’s the main thing. I didn’t have to use the pistol once I pulled it.”

Summers said he lives in a nice, relatively sedate neighborhood, but said, “My wife has to deal with this knowledge that some guy came here in the middle of the morning and burglarized my boat.”

He said the officer who responded also noted that the would-be thief was “brazen” to try the theft in the middle of the day.

Summers had high praise for the rapid and thorough police response once he called 911, and was complimentary of the 911 dispatcher also.

The suspect was described as white, about 24 to 25 years old, skinny, brown hair, 5-foot-9 to 5-foot-10, wearing a blue tattered shirt and greasy ball cap.