A 73-YEAR-OLD great-grandmother in Trinidad single-handedly tackled a masked gunman who had just shot one of her grandsons, and held him until police arrived. They found the gunman crying with the woman sitting on him. The drama began when Elise Joseph awoke just after midnight on Monday to the sounds of smashing glass and found her grandson being beaten. It was enough to make her spring into action. Joseph jumped the man, clawing, fighting, grabbing away the gun, tripping and then sitting on him. The man bit her on both arms, but was unable to get her to release him. And despite his tears and plea to be allowed to go home, Joseph, who weighs around 200 pounds, refused to budge. Each time he tried to get up she choked him. Half an hour later, the police came to find Joseph still sitting on the man in the yard of her home at Vessigny Village, La Brea. Joseph related what happened yesterday, saying she slept through the sound of the bullets but awoke when she heard the smashing of glass. "When I opened the back door, I saw my grandson and somebody scrambling and fighting. I wasn't worried about nothing. I run down and hold on to the gun butt. The fella hold on to it too. I never hold a gun but I point it up in the air, just like what I see in the movies. I was trying to get it away. So we was pulling and tugging and falling. I take the gun from him. She said she kept a hold on the man and saw her wounded grandson fall. 'I DECIDED IS ME OR THE BANDIT' "He could not say or do anything again because he was bleeding bad." But instead of calling off the attack, Ms. Joseph said: "I decided is me or the bandit now. All I wanted was for the police to get him, so I wasn't letting go." She said the two of them stumbled into the bushes and the man fell, losing a shoe. "I pull off the mask and see he face. I say 'oh, you feel you could come to kill. You eh getting away tonight'. So I get on top him and sit down." Elise said the man "started bawling, saying 'granny, you giving me too much weight'. I said "you have no right to come here. Take the weight!" She said the man kept biting her "but with all that bite, I wasn't letting go. I put my hand around his throat and hold on. When he try to get up, I hold on tighter. And I do that until the police come and tell me they go take over from here." The 26-year-old suspect, described as "tall, lean and fit" was said to be red-faced with shame in a cell at the La Brea Police Station. He was the butt of jokes in Vessigny Village, where his bungled crime ended in his detention by Joseph, a mother of seven, grandmother of 24, and great-grandmother of 16. The man he shot, Anthony Joseph, 28, was being treated at the San Fernando General Hospital for bullet wounds to his left leg and left arm. Joseph, whose husband passed away many years ago, is a pensioner who worked as a domestic helper and at a supermarket. She said her only ailment was high blood pressure, and "I can't eat too much hot food." She said: "If a man come back to attack my family, I will do it again. When you walking with God, you have nothing to fear." A man was charged late yesterday with four gun-related offences and wounding with intent, all arising out of the incident. Reprinted from jamaica-gleaner.com