HAMPTON, Va. (WAVY) — An image of Xavier Sterling is on a blanket being held by his mother, Cheryl. Her daughter had awakened her with tragic news.

“She came in and told me somebody had called her, let her know that Xavier had been shot,” Cheryl Johnson-Sterling said. “That was when I got real upset, and I was hoping that it wasn’t so, but it was.”

A man, later identified as Xavier Sterling, 29, had died following a Monday night shooting at Chance’s Restaurant and Lounge in the 500 block of Settlers Landing Road in Hampton, according to police.

Officers had responded for the report of a shooting at 10:48 p.m., and when they arrived, they found Xavier Sterling with life-threatening injuries.

Members of the Hampton Fire and Rescue Division responded and began lifesaving measures while transporting Xavier Sterling to a local hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.

“I was hoping he was still alive,” Cheryl Johnson-Sterling said, “and when I got there, the chaplain said, ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’ So we already knew what had happened.”

After investigating, it is believed that an altercation began inside the business and then continued outside. Police said an unidentified suspect discharged a firearm, which resulted in the Sterling’s fatal wound.

Cheryl Johnson-Sterling said a Hampton Police detective had told her that “a fight had broken out and Xavier was trying to break it up, so he got in between the person with the gun and the person he was arguing with. We don’t know for sure if he was aiming at Xavier or if he was trying to kill the other person.

“Some of this younger generation, they are ready to pull out guns. This could have been avoided. He was just trying to break it up. I know that can be dangerous, but that was Xavier. He put his life on the line to try to save somebody else.”

Detectives from the Major Crimes Unit are investigating the circumstances surrounding this incident.

When 10 On Your Side’s Andy Fox spoke with Sterling’s mother Tuesday, she was in her apartment next to a blanket with the images of her son and his two daughters on it.

Dominique Pierce, Xavier Sterling’s friend and mentor, described his friend as intelligent, hilarious and talented.

“I worked with Xavier when he was a teenager, so I saw him pretty much from eighth grade into high school when he joined the military, and when he became a father.

Pierce built up Xavier Sterling’s confidence.

“I wrote a play when he was in his teenage years, and he starred in the play,” Pierce said. “He memorized the lines without fail.”

Johnson-Sterling has a plea for anyone who will listen.

“For the younger generation out there, they feel like they need to pick up guns,” she said. “You need to find some other way to solve your problems, because this is ridiculous. I mean, enough is enough. To kill him? It must stop. It really needs to stop.”

After the shooting outside Chance’s Restaurant and Lounge, Johnson-Sterling went to the hospital, and said a kind detective let her see her son one more time.

“He walked me back there to the emergency room,” she said, “and I saw him lying on a gurney with his eyes open. There was something in his mouth. I’m sure they were trying to revive him.”

Xavier Sterling’s father, Leonard Sterling, who lives in Mesa, Arizona, asked, “What does the word of God say? Blessed are the peacemakers.

“We have got to stop it. We have got to stop it. It doesn’t make any sense why he was trying to break up a fight.

All day, Leonard Sterling has been contemplating his son’s short life.

“My son did not make 30 years of age,” Leonard Sterling said, weeping at the loss of his son. “What is wrong with you guys? He was trying to break up a fight. You use your hands to do that. You can’t use your hands you have to shoot him, and you shot him in the chest.”

Said Pierce: “I just ask people to think about his family. Think about his daughters. The good that he was and what he did for our country, what he did for his family.”