WASHINGTON - An Indian engineer was killed and two others were injured after an American man yelling "get out of my country" opened fire on them in a crowded bar in Kansas City, Missouri, in an apparent hate crime incident.
Srinivas Kuchibhotla, 32, who was working at GPS-maker Garmin headquarters in Olathe, Kansas, was killed while another Indian man and his colleague Alok Madasani was critically injured after a 51-year-old Navy veteran started shooting hurling racial slurs following an altercation on Wednesday night. A third person, an American man identified as Ian Grillot who tried to intervene also received injuries in the firing in Austins Bar and Grill in Olathe.
The shooter, Adam Purinton, reportedly got into an argument with the victims in the terms of racism, and shouted "get out of my country", "terrorist" before shooting them.
In addition to local police investigating the crime, the FBI is looking into the shooting as a hate crime based on reports of the shooter making racist comments before he shot at the two men.
Local and federal investigators will work together, they say, to combine information from the crime scene to prove who shot the men with background information the FBI can gather to determine if he acted with some type of malice. Two diplomats from the Indian consulate in Houston were “rushing” to Kansas to assist, Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said in a tweet. Purinton has been charged with one count of premeditated murder and two counts of attempted premeditated murder, and is being held in Henry County, Missouri, on $2 million bail. On Thursday, he waived extradition and will be moved to Johnson County, Kansas, at some point in the near future.
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