'AARP Ninja' uses cane to fend off street attacker in Washington state

LAKE STEVENS, Wash., Feb. 12 (UPI) -- A Washington state senior was dubbed "the AARP Ninja" after using his cane to fend off an attacker on the street.

Buzz Biechler, 66, said he was walking home from the Walgreens store in Lake Stevens about three months ago when a suspicious man on a bicycle nearly collided with him and alerted him to a second man running straight toward him.

"He had [a large piece of wood] raised like this," Biechler told KOMO-TV. "He was running at me full assault. I don't know. I don't have anything to steal. I didn't know what he wanted."

Biechler, who has only one eye and suffers from diabetes, a heart condition and hepatitis C, said instinct caused him to use his cane to strike the man in the stomach and ankle.

Biechler became known locally as "the AARP Ninja" thanks to a viral Facebook post by his daughter, Tania Biechler Angel.

"My dad is old school. He doesn't carry a cell phone. He continued to hobble his way home as fast as he could. He didn't call the police. He figured he made it safe and taught the guy a lesson," Angel wrote.

"If you see anyone in the area hobbling or know of anyone with a bruise on their chest in the shape of the butt end of a cane, please tell them they're lucky they picked on the wrong frail aging man and not his pissed off daughter and then ask 'How does it feel to get you ass kicked [by] an AARP ninja!?'"

Angel suggested the attacker may have been after the needles her father uses to administer his diabetes treatments.

Biechler said he has struggled with addiction in the past.

"I kind of feel for the guy. I know what he's going through," Biechler said, "but at the same time, It's kind of like, 'don't tread on me.'"

He said he was surprised by the attention he received from Angel's post.

"People at the Safeway call me a 'silver warrior,'" he said. "And then I was going through the store and this little girl looks up at her mom and says, 'I think that's him!'"