COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho (AP) — An Idaho pastor who led the prayer at a weekend campaign rally for Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz was gunned down outside his church the following day but was expected to survive.
Altar Church pastor Tim Remington, who has counseled drug addicts and jail inmates in this city about 30 miles east of Spokane, Washington, was shot as many as six times Sunday, including in the head and lung, officials said.
Outreach pastor John Padula spoke with Remington’s doctors and told The Spokesman-Review that the 55-year-old is “absolutely fine.” Remington prayed Saturday with the Texas senator in Coeur d’Alene, but officials do not know what prompted the shooting.
The Coeur d’Alene Police Department said it is looking for local resident Andrew , 30, a Marine veteran who should be considered armed and dangerous.
The suspect was inside the church during morning services, said Padula, who viewed footage from a security camera that captured the shooting.
The man “kind of wandered around,” then went outside and waited in his car for about 10 minutes before Remington left the church around 2 p.m. Sunday, Padula said.
Remington opened his car door, and the shooter walked up behind him “and just started shooting him in the back,” he said.
Two men at the church quickly ran to their pastor’s aid. Remington was shot in the lung, head, hip and shoulder, Padula said.
Remington has been threatened several times by drug addicts he tried to help through his faith-based recovery program, Padula said.
He has spent years building a faith-based recovery program for drug addicts and alcoholics, and he has counseled jail inmates, the newspaper reported.
