QUILCENE – Bruce Bratton was shot in the leg Wednesday night when he fought off a would-be burglar at his home, and he doesn’t regret fighting back.
“I would still do the same thing,” Bratton, 57, said in a phone interview on Thursday as he recovered from the bullet wound to his left calf at Harrison Medical Center in Bremerton.
“He would still have shot me or done something to me.”
The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office is hunting for the burglar who broke into Bratton’s home at 293367 U.S. Highway 101 on Wednesday evening, and fled.
“We do have positive leads, and we are following up on those leads,” said Jefferson County Undersheriff Tony Hernandez.
Although Bratton saw only one person at the scene – a white male with short, dark hair, who was between the ages of 18 and 30, wearing dark clothing – investigators believe a second person was involved, Hernandez said.
The first part of the investigation involves determining if a link exists between Bratton and the burglar, Hernandez said.
“We’re always going to look at the possibility of some kind of connection between the victim and the suspect,” Hernandez said.
“We’re still collecting evidence. At this point we really don’t think it was random.”
