Exclusive: 76-Year-Old Man Shot By Police Says He Doesn't Hold A Grudge

UPPER DEERFIELD TOWNSHIP, NJ – The 76-year-old man shot multiple times by State Police while responding to a mistaken 9-1-1 call says he doesn't hold a grudge.

Gerald Sykes suffered a collapsed lung, two fractured ribs, a ripped diaphragm, ruptured spleen and perforated bowel as a result of two bullets to the chest and one to the groin.

He spent 9 days in the hospital after the July 29th incident and is now home with his wife recovering.

"I'm doing pretty good. I'm alive, I'm beginning to feel better, a lot of the pains are subsiding now," Sykes said during a TV exclusive with Eyewitness News on Thursday.

At the advice of his attorney Rich Kaser he did not want to discuss details of the shooting which is under investigation by the New Jersey State Attorney General's Office.

According to the Office 2 troopers from the Bridgeton Station were dispatched to Sykes's home on Centerton Rd a little before midnight to investigate a 9-1-1 hang up call.

It turned out the call did not come from Sykes's home which has a large cell phone tower in the backyard. According to authorities the officers didn't get a response at Sykes's front door so they went around back.

As they were shining their flashlights inside the glass door there was an exchange of gunfire.

One trooper shot 4 times, hitting Skyes who fired a single round from a shotgun, grazing an officer.

Authorities have not said who fired first but Kaser says it was the officers.

He says Sykes thought there were intruders outside so he grabbed his shotgun to check it out.

"If one of those bullets had been another half inch (over) I wouldn't be here," says Sykes who highly praised the trauma unit at Cooper University Hospital.

Sykes says he lost an extreme amount of blood and his wife Margot who was by his side says it was the 76-year-old's calm demeanor that kept him from going into shock.

"He's strong, his mind is strong and he can almost cope with anything," says Margot.

Sykes says the incident hasn't shaken his confidence in police.

"I don't hold a grudge. I always believed in the police and I still do," says Sykes.