A redeemed man tackles bank robber, then prays for him

By JOHN FORTMEYER
CNNW publisher
   PORTLAND — When Shawn Miller looked into the eyes of the suspected bank robber he had just tackled, he saw a familiar sight — his own past.
  “I knew that the story was not supposed to include the good guy's catching the robber and then being beat up, so we fought hard for two minutes,” recalled Miller about the Feb. 13 incident. “I recieved no direct blows ,but instead delivered the necessary combinations to subdue him and he was bleeding now. Then something happened. It was like a switch. I had seen this before — no, in fact, I had been this before....broken on the ground with no hope and nothing but shame.”
   Holding the man on the ground as he waited for police to arrive, Miller sensed the robber’s total despair. Filled with a compassion sparked by the Christian faith that had redeemed himself from a life of crime, Miller right there — in front of a gathering crowd — asked the man if he could pray for him.
  “He agreed,” said Miller. “ I knelt beside him there in the street and asked God to come into his life and to supernaturally clean him up, transform him, protect him through the process of prison and that he become a powerfull instrument of God’s grace when he gets out. The people all looked on, seemingly frozen, at the redemptive drama playing out. The chase, the fight, the dejection and shame, the mercy and prayer.”
   And money recovered from the robbery lay all around the scene.
   According to the FBI, the suspect was in police custody because of Miller’s quick action. The suspect, a 43-year-old transient, walked into a Wells Fargo branch at 6646 S.E. Milwaukie Blvd., and handed a teller a note demanding cash. He did not show a weapon. He left on foot with an undisclosed amount of money, but Miller, who was in the bank, chased him and nabbed him a block away.
  “My first thought was he better be fast, because I am a runner,” said Miller. “I caught him after about 300 feet and tackled him to the ground, noticing a cloud of money fly into the air from the impact.”
   Miller held him until Portland police arrived. The FBI declined to immediately identify the suspect pending investigation, but held him on an earlier parole violation.
   It was only four years ago that Miller himself was a methamphetamine addict who stole cars and had twice been to prison. He had been through more than a dozen drug treatment programs, but gradually realized that if he was to have any ultimate victory, it had to be one with a Christian basis. He enrolled in Portland Rescue Mission’s New Life Recovery program, graduating after 22 months. He also got strongly grounded in the Community of Adsideo, a church in the Sellwood area, which brought needed accountability to his life. He also has enrolled at Portland Community College, earning 52 credits while getting top grades. At the time of the Feb. 13, robbery, Miller was in the bank cashing a small check “for which I was grateful, since times have been lean and I am looking for work again for a while.”
   Because of his own past struggles with addiction, Miller immediately knew what was motivating the suspect he had apprehended.
  “I noticed the track-marks between his index finger and thumb and the ulcerated sores on his hands that usually means MRSA — medicine-resistant staph — from dirty heroin. I knew this guy was hurting and that he was desperate,” Miller said.
   Miller told all this to the local police and the FBI.
  “They said this was a beautiful story,” Miller said “I felt that God had a chance to play out His redemptive story through a very fast time-line having had a maximum effect on those around and that it had nothing to do with me, but was truly a ‘set-up’ for His glory.”