The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bar patron pleads guilty to killing Indian migrant
Man shot engineer to death after spat over immigration.
OLATHE, KAN. — A Kansas man pleaded guilty Tuesday to the murder of an Indian-born engineer whom he had angrily confronted about his immigration status at a bar here last year, then fatally shot in an attack that drew international scorn.
Witnesses said the suspect, Adam Purinton, yelled, “Get out of my country” before firing the shots that killed the engineer, Srinivas Kuchibhotla, and wounded two others. Federal authorities called the attack a hate crime.
Purinton’s guilty plea was for state charges of first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder for the two men he wounded. Purinton, 52, is expected to be sentenced to life in prison May 4, but he also still faces hate crime and firearm charges in federal court. The shooting came at a time of rising angst across the country over anti-immigrant sentiment and its potential ramifications.
“Today’s guilty verdict will not bring back my Srinu, but it will send a strong message that hate is never acceptable,” Kuchibhotla’s widow, Sunayana Dumala, said in a statement.
Kuchibhotla had been having drinks at Austin’s Bar and Grill with a co-worker, Alok Madasani, who is also from India, when Purinton approached them on the patio and began interrogating them about their immigration status.
“Where are you from?” he asked, according to Will Hurst, an assistant district attorney in Johnson County, who was reading from a statement in court Tuesday. “How did you get into this country?”
Other bar patrons came to the defense of the two men, and Purinton left. But he returned with a Taurus 9-mm handgun, covered his face with a scarf and opened fire, Hurst said. Purinton, a Navy veteran, fired at the two Indian men at least eight times at close range, the prosecutor said. Madasani was hit once in the thigh and escaped, but Kuchibhotla was struck several times.
The murder generated immense outrage in India and dominated headlines in the news media there. Many blamed President Donald Trump’s tough rhetoric on immigration, but the White House rejected any link between that and the shooting. Still, the top American diplomat in India released a statement at the time condemning the attack and vowing a full investigation.
When Hurst said in court Tuesday that Kuchibhotla, 32, had died, Purinton leaned back, tilted his head up, and his lawyer, Michael McCulloch, patted him on the back. Purinton, wearing an orange jumpsuit with his hands cuffed in front of him, spoke only briefly in response to questions from Judge J. Charles Droege.
Asked how he would plead to the first-degree murder charge, Purinton said, “Guilty, your honor.”
Purinton had long struggled with alcoholism, neighbors and family said.But he really seemed to struggle after his father died in 2015, people who knew him said.