Ketrell Ferguson is homeless in Washington, D.C., and was looking for a place to sleep last week around 3:30 a.m. when he stumbled on what he thought was a robbery.
Ferguson armed himself with half a brick and a stick, according to NBC News 4, and got close enough to the incident to realize that a woman was being attacked. According to police who spoke with the news station, 23-year-old Alemen Gonzalo reportedly tried to pay a woman for sex, and when she refused, he allegedly tried to rape her behind a bus stop.
Ferguson told the news station that "he has relatives who have been raped and he felt he had to do something."
"As soon as he lifted his head up, I smacked him with the stick, hard as I could, in his head," Ferguson told News 4. "He fell off the lady, stumbled, and I smacked him again, and I just kept smacking him with the stick as hard as I could."
Police found Gonzalo bleeding from his head not far from where the incident happened. He was arrested and charged "with assault with the intent to commit first-degree sexual abuse," News 4 reports.
"Even though I'm going through hard times, God put … me in a place where I could help," Ferguson told the news station. "I was at the right place at [the] right time."
Read more at NBC News 4.