Victim prays for armed robber as he gave back all he had stolen

According to All Christian News, 21-yr-old Shaquille Hairston of Euclid rode a bus home in the middle of the night on June 3. On the short walk home after he got off the bus, he was approached by a man who had been riding the bus with him. The man allegedly pulled out a gun and said to him, “Hey bruh. Gimme everything you got."

Speaking to Cleveland’s Fox 8 News, instead of going into a panic, as many people would do when faced with this frightening situation, Hairston calmly told the gunman that he didn’t have much money on him at the time.

“I told him, I was like, I don’t have anything,” Hairston recalls. “I really don’t have anything and he took the gun, he swung and he hit me in my head really hard and I had a bump right here on my head.”

The robber then raised the gun and told him, “I’ll shoot you. I’m not playing with you, man,” Hairston recalled.

After handing over his wallet and cellphone, Hairston began praying out loud, he told the news outlet. “Because even if that was gonna be my last night living, I wanted to go out knowing that God was with me and I had God on my mind and if I did go, I would be with him when I wake up on the other side,” he said.

During the course of his fervent prayer, Hairston claims he began praying for the gunman and his family and struck up a conversation with the robber, inviting him to church. He adds that the man told him how it was his first attempt at robbery and the only reason he had done so was that he was unemployed and desperate.

Offering to help the man in any way that he could, Hairston told the gunman, “I’m just trying to make it out here like you.”

Hairston’s words of comfort and prayer must have hit home, because the man gave him back his wallet and cell phone after reflecting on his situation for a few minutes. “I’m so sorry for this,” the robber told the faithful Hairston. “You were the wrong type of person to do this to.”

When the robber told him, “Man, you’re really blessed,” Hairston replied, “No, you’re blessed,” and added that he would be praying for him and his family. The man then reportedly shook his hand after acknowledging Hairston’s words, and both men went on their way.

While police are still looking for the man, who left behind a tube of lip balm at the scene, Hairston said he forgives the unidentified suspect. “This happened for a reason,” Hairston told reporters.

“My concern has been on him, and that God will touch his heart and tender his heart so he won’t even feel he has to do that,” Hairston stated, adding that if he met the man again, he would tell him that God was with them both that night.