Jameel McGee could be forgiven for holding a grudge against former Michigan police officer Andrew Collins.
In 2005, the then-Benton Harbor cop falsified reports to put McGee behind bars for four years for dealing drugs -- a crime he didn't commit.
But details of Collins' shady conduct eventually came to light, and he later spent 18 months in prison for falsifying multiple police reports, planting drugs and stealing.
"I took money from people. I took money from the city that I worked for. I was the lowest of low. In my mind now, as I look back, I was as low as you can get as a police officer," Collins told The Herald-Palladium.
McGee, meanwhile, was fully exonerated — but understandably felt a seething sense of injustice at what had gone down.
"I lost everything," he said on the "CBS Evening News" segment "On the Road” with Steve Hartman. "My only goal was to seek him when I got home and to hurt him."
Fast forward a decade and the pair, who say they both found God while incarcerated, ended up working alongside each other last year at the city's Cafe Mosaic, run by the Mosaic Christian Community Development Association.
And they ended up sorting out their differences. "I said, 'Honestly, I have no explanation, all I can do is say I'm sorry,'" Collins told "CBS Evening News."
It was "pretty much what I needed to hear," said McGee, who revealed their friendship has since grown stronger and stronger — to the point that he recently even told his former nemesis that he loved him.
"And I just started weeping because he doesn't owe me that. I don't deserve that," Collins said.
They both now want to spread the message of forgiveness, according to The Associated Press.
"We have this joint mission, now, of letting the world know that if you owe an apology to somebody, put your pride down and go apologize," said Collins, who's becoming a licensed pastor in the Wesleyan Church. "And if you're holding something against somebody, let go of the bitterness because it's like drinking poison and hoping it's hurting them."
