Kansas Shooting Suspect Thought He Had 'Killed Two Iranians'

Recent reports from a bar worker in Missouri indicate that the suspect who shot and killed an Indian man and injured another in Olathe, Kansas, claimed to have killed 'two Iranians.' Adam Purinton, a 51-year-old white man, targeted the two Indians at a bar in Olathe last Wednesday. Another American citizen was also injured in this incident. A bar worker in Missouri, located 120 miles from the shooting site, contacted the police early Thursday morning, stating that the suspect had told him he had killed two Iranians but had sworn him to silence. According to the Associated Press, police arrested Adam Purinton shortly after this call. In this shooting, Srinivas Kuchibhotla, an Indian-American computer engineer, was killed. His friend Alok Madasani, another Indian-American, along with an American worker, was injured in the shooting. Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate in the 2016 election, reacted to the shooting in Kansas by tweeting that Donald Trump, the President of the United States, should respond to the incident. Reports indicate that this shooting and murder have received extensive coverage in Indian print media, and some people on social media say that Donald Trump's immigration rhetoric has inflamed this atmosphere of intolerance. A White House spokesperson stated on Friday that the loss of any human life is tragic, but linking this murder to Trump's positions and rhetoric is ridiculous. At least one eyewitness told the local Kansas City Star newspaper that the shooter shouted, 'Get out of my country,' before shooting at the Indian victims. A spokesperson for the district attorney's office stated that Adam Purinton will be charged with one count of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder. According to a local NBC-affiliated television channel, recorded conversations from an emergency call made by a female bar worker show that Adam Purinton said he needed to hide because he had killed two Iranian men. Based on the tape of these conversations, which was provided to the local television network, the bar worker told a police officer, 'He wouldn't tell me what he had done. I kept asking him, and he said if I let him stay in my house, he would tell me the story. I finally managed to convince him to tell the story. He said he had shot two Iranian men in Olathe.' Both Indian victims of this shooting worked for a tracking engineering equipment company called Garmin. Ian Grillot, a 24-year-old construction worker who tried to stop the shooting, was injured in the chest and hand. In a video recorded at the hospital where he was treated, he expressed happiness that he risked his life to defend others. Ian Grillot stated, 'I couldn't just stand there; I had to do something. That's why I intervened.'