Eric Gaines, a police officer at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, was waiting for a bus when he spotted a teen standing near a sleeping homeless man. Many people had passed the homeless man, who, Gaines said, is familiar to the area.
But the teenager “walked over to him and just knelt down and put his hands down on his foot” and prayed, Gaines told the Baltimore Sun.
Gaines snapped a photo of the young man praying over the sleeping homeless man and posted it to Facebook. The photo has gone viral, having been shared over 32,000 times, the Sun reports.
“I thought it was an amazing sight. I had to take a picture of it. It was extremely powerful,” Gaines said.
Gaines doesn’t know who the teen is but noted that some friends who were walking with the young man held the bus for him, and once he finished praying, he hopped on the bus and was gone.
“He didn’t do it for any accolades or any praise. … I didn’t get a chance to say anything. I wanted to say something to him,” Gaines told the Sun. “But it was just as if he did what he had to do and left.”
Gaines called the image and the act a powerful spiritual moment that he was proud to have witnessed.
“It was good to see a young black man, especially in this community, doing something positive,” Gaines said. “That’s why I took the picture. It was powerful on so many levels, and for it to be in my presence—it was crazy.”
Read more at the Baltimore Sun.