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Kansas shooting: Indian victim says attack does not reflect state's 'true spirit' Man charged in Kansas attack reportedly said he'd shot 'two Iranian people'
(about 5 hours later)
An Indian man who was shot and wounded at a bar in suburban Kansas City last week says he wished the killing of his best friend during the attack had all been a dream, but that the incident, apparently fueled by racism, “doesn’t reflect the true spirit of Kansas”. A bartender at the Missouri restaurant where a man was arrested for an apparently racially motivated shooting of two Indian men in Kansas told a 911 dispatcher the man admitted shooting “two Iranian people” and said he needed a place to stay.
Alok Madasani, 32, addressed a crowd of hundreds during a vigil on Sunday night at the Ball Conference Center in Olathe. He described the fatal shooting last Wednesday of his friend and co-worker, Srinivas Kuchibhotla, as “a senseless crime”, the Kansas City Star reported. A recording from Henry County, Missouri 911 reveals that the bartender warned police not to approach the building with sirens blaring or, she said, the man would “freak out” and “something bad’s going to happen”.
The man, Adam Purinton, 51, of Olathe, was scheduled to appear in court on Monday. He has been charged with first-degree murder and first-degree attempted murder.
According to witnesses, Purinton yelled “get out of my country” at two 32-year-old Indian men, Srinivas Kuchibhotla and Alok Madasani, before he opened fire at Austin’s Bar and Grill in the Kansas City suburb of Olathe on Wednesday evening.
Kuchibhotla was killed and Madasani injured. The two had come to the US from India to study, and they worked as engineers at GPS-maker Garmin. A third patron, Ian Grillot, 24, was wounded when he tried to intervene.
After the shooting, Purinton, who is white, drove 70 miles east to an Applebee’s restaurant in Clinton, Missouri, where he spoke to the bartender. In the 911 call, the bartender told the dispatcher a man had come into the bar and said he had done something “really bad” and was on the run from the police.
“He asked if he could stay with me and my husband,” the bartender said, “and he wouldn’t tell me what he did. I kept asking him, and he said that he would tell me if I agreed to let him stay with me. Well, I finally got him to tell me and he said, like, that he shot and killed two Iranian people in Olathe.”
Authorities have declined to discuss a possible motive for the attack or to say if they are investigating it as a possible hate crime. But the incident has raised concern about the treatment of immigrants, who feel targeted by Donald Trump’s promises to ban certain travelers and build a wall along the Mexico border.
The University of Kansas Health System released a video Sunday of an interview with Grillot, of Grandview, Missouri, who is recovering after a bullet went through his right hand and into his chest.
Grillot said he had to do something because there were families and children in the bar when the gunfire erupted. He said he was grateful that the attack was bringing the community together and that it was “awesome honestly to be able to give people a hope that not everybody hates everybody”.
Madasani addressed a crowd of hundreds during a vigil on Sunday night at the Ball Conference Center in Olathe, Kansas. He described the killing of Kuchibhotla, his friend and co-worker, as “a senseless crime” the Kansas City Star reported.
“The main reason why I am here is that’s what my best friend, Srinivas, would have done,” Madasani said. “He would have been here for me.”“The main reason why I am here is that’s what my best friend, Srinivas, would have done,” Madasani said. “He would have been here for me.”
Another patron, Ian Grillot, 24, was also wounded when he tried to intervene in the shooting at Austins Bar and Grill in Olathe. “I wish it was a dream,” Madasani said.
A bullet went through Grillot’s right hand and into his chest, just missing a major artery but fracturing a vertebra in his neck. Still walking on crutches, Madasani drew applause when he called the shooting “an isolated incident that doesn’t reflect the true spirit of Kansas, the Midwest and the United States”.
“Another half-inch, I could be dead or never walk again,” he said on Thursday from his hospital bed in a video from the University of Kansas Health System. Grillot did not describe what led to the shooting, saying only that he felt compelled to intervene to help others. At the vigil, Madasani recalled how Kuchibhotla never complained about picking him up and driving him to work for six months.
“I was just doing what anyone should have done for another human being,” he said. “He waited till I bought a car,” he said. “That’s the kind of guy he was – is.”
At the vigil on Sunday, Madasani said: “I wish it was a dream.”
Adam Purinton, 51, of Olathe, is scheduled to appear in court on Monday. He has been charged with first-degree murder and first-degree attempted murder. According to witnesses, Purinton yelled “get out of my country” at the two Indian men before he opened fire.
Madasani said in an interview the suspect first asked what visas the two Indian men were on. Both worked for GPS device-maker Garmin in Olathe.
Still walking on crutches, Madasani drew applause when he called the shooting “an isolated incident that doesn’t reflect the true spirit of Kansas, the midwest and the United States”.
In a febrile atmosphere surrounding Donald Trump’s hardline policies on immigration, the shooting has drawn international comment.
Madasani recalled how Kuchibhotla, who was also 32, never complained about picking him up and driving him to work for six months.
“He waited till I bought a car. That’s the kind of guy he was – is,” Madasani said.