A 26-year-old pastor was shot in the head while preaching the gospel on an Arizona street corner Wednesday night.

Hans Schmidt, a husband and father of two, remained in critical condition Friday morning while Glendale police asked for the public’s help to find who’s responsible.

“It happened on the northwest corner of 51st and Peoria avenues around 6 p.m. Wednesday. Friends say it happened as the former military combat medic was standing with a megaphone on the street corner, preaching the gospel to people passing by, something he’d apparently done countless times before. Only this time, someone pulled out a gun and shot him,” CBS 5 reports.

26-year-old Christian preacher Hans Schmidt was shot in the head while standing on a corner in Glendale, Arizona, encouraging people to attend an evening service and hear the Gospel at his church, Victory Chapel. Hans is a veteran with a wife and two children and is currently clinging to life.

Even before some coward pulled the trigger, passersby say Hans was enduring shrieks and curses in his direction. These eyewitnesses also say that, following Christ’s example, he never raised a fist or uttered a word against those who insulted him.

Please pray for Hans.

CBS 5 reports:

Friends and family can’t understand why. “Who knows why someone would want to take it out on a preacher like that because he’s speaking the gospel and good news to everybody. He’s out to help the community,” said Henry Branch, who lives nearby. Schmidt also helps lead weekly services at the Victory Chapel as the outreach director.

“This is a horrible, horrible offense,” said Officer Gina Winn, the public information officer for Glendale police. “We have a 26-year-old who was a military medic. He is recently married, he has two small children and he’s currently in a critical state.”

Paul Sanchez works nearby and said when Schmidt was out preaching, some people drove by screaming and cursing at him. “There was a lot of everything, really—hateful comments, people yelling at him, ‘get off the street,’ all sorts of mean things,” he said. Sanchez never imagined things would escalate, especially since he says Schmidt never confronted anyone or responded to the mean comments.

Larry Dettman was at services at the church on Wednesday night when the pastor announced what happened. Minutes later, the pastor left for the hospital to check on Schmidt. “Out of nowhere, how does this happen? There’s some real evil in this world, bunch of human junk in their life and they take it out on somebody else,” Dettman said.

“Now, 51st Avenue is a very busy intersection, so we know for a fact that there were people in the area, there were vehicles driving within the area,” Officer Winn said. “So we believe there is somebody within the Valley that does know something about what happened.”

So far, no arrests have been made and Glendale police are asking anyone with information to contact the department at 623-930-3000, or Silent Witness at 480-WITNESS or 480-TESTIGO for Spanish speakers.

“Victory Chapel is raising money for Schmidt’s medical expenses,” the outlet added.

AZFamily aired this video report:

 

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