This Houston doctor and his wife have offered grace with justice for some bad guys who robbed them.. (Houston Chronicle photo by Jake Daniel)
A Houston ER doctor who was robbed in his own home last month is extending a reward of a wholly–or what might be called holy–different type.
I don’t know if the doc and his wife are persons of faith or no faith, but their forgiving offer to pay for their tormenters’ educations is a reminder that “to err is human, to forgive divine.”
The story, from The Houston Chronicle legal affairs reporter Brian Rogers, is the kind that makes you go “Wow!”–in a good way.
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With a gun pointed at his head, Victor Ho opened the safe in his upscale Bunker Hill home for two masked attackers who took cash, jewelry and guns, then tied up the emergency room doctor and went out the front door.
It was the sort of ordeal that can affect people for years, but in this situation, it could end up changing the lives of the attackers more than the victim.
Weeks after the Oct. 17 incident, when authorities sought the public’s help in catching the criminals, Ho and his wife made an extraordinary offer to the still-unidentified young men: Surrender and we’ll pay for your education, even college.
“If you commit the crime you have to do the time, but once you get out, we’ll help you out,” Ho said. “Whether it’s a trade school, whether it’s higher education, I will support that all the way.”
Ho said his offer stems from a belief that simply locking up criminals is not the answer.
“We aren’t trying to change the way we prosecute people,” Ho said. “We are trying to see what we can do so stop recidivism.”
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