Chicago Son Saves Mother From Same Fate His Father Met


When his father was shot and killed in a home invasion in 1962, Anthony Tate would never have imagined that history would attempt to repeat itself more than 50 years later.

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Bertha Tate, Anthony’s 88-year-old mother and widow of Joseph Price, has kept a gun with her for self-defense ever since the ill-fated night when her husband was murdered. She knows all too well that the streets of Chicago are rife with gunfire, noting that several siblings and her own children have since been killed.

Thankfully, this story has a better ending.

Anthony was in his mother’s Chicago apartment when a man came through her window, but when this intruder tried to victimize this family, he was prepared. He kept a .22 caliber revolver under the cushion of his chair for just such an occasion.

“I heard the gunshot,” Bertha says. “And then my son called me, ‘Momma, somebody tried to break in the window.”

Anthony’s shot hit the intruder and he ran off to his get away car a few blocks away. Police had no problem tracking him down, following his trail of blood from the Tate’s apartment. The 36-year-old man was taken to Stoger Hospital with a gunshot would to the arm and is expected to recover.

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In the county jail, that is.

As for Bertha, she’s just thankful this break-in had a better ending than her last.

“My son said he wasn’t going to let that somebody come in that window. He knew those boys came in the house and killed his father. He wasn’t going to let somebody come in the house and kill me.”

She also says the intruder got off easy, if she had been behind the gun, she would have shot him in the chest.

Yes, ma’am!


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