The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
American who tried to stop Kansas shooter: ‘I just did what was right’
A 24-YEAR-OLD American man being hailed as a hero for trying to stop a shooter, who killed an Indian in Kansas City, on Friday said it was “actually the right thing to do”.
Ian Grillot hid behind a table when the 51-year-old gunman, Adam Purinton, started hurling racial slurs and shooting following an altercation at Austins Bar and Grill, killing an Indian techie and injuring other.
Grillot counted the gunshots and,whenhethoughttheshooter was out of bullets, he tried to stop him. However, Purinton still had one round left, which he used to shoot at him.
Grillot said the bullet went through his right hand and into his chest, just missing a major artery but fracturing a vertebrae in his neck. “Another half inch, I could be dead or never walk again,'” he said, wearing a neck brace. His injured hand remains immobilised.
“I guess I miscounted,” Grillot said in an interview from his hospital room, in a video released by the University of Kansas Health System.
“I got up and proceeded to chase him down, try to subdue him... I got behind him and he turned around and fired a round at me,” he said.
“I was doing what I should havedoneforanotherhumanbeing. It’s not about where he (victim) was from or his ethnicity. We’re all humans, so I just did what was right to do and I didn’t wantthegentlemantopotentially go after somebody else,” he said.
Grillot said he learned that the wife of Alok Madasani, the injured Indian, is five months’ pregnant and that he considers the engineer his new best friend, the Kansas City Star report said.
“One of the gentlemen that survived, he came in here today and it was the greatest thing — I can’t even describe it — coming to find his five months-pregnant wife. Something was guiding me to do what I did, somebody was watching over me, I’m just very grateful that one of the gentlemen is fine and alive. It’s terrible what happened to his friend. But I think he was watching over us last night,” Grillot said.
He said he hoped the two could spend some time together outside hospital. “I don’t think it’s going to be at the bar, though,” he said.
“It just put the biggest smile on my face,” Grillot said when he saw Madasani earlier in the day.
Bartender Garret Bohnen told Kansas City Star that Srinivas Kuchibhotla and Madasani stopped at Austins for a drink once or twice a week.
“From what I understand when he was throwing racial slurs at the two gentlemen, Ian (Grillot) stood up for them,” Bohnen said. “We're all proud of him.”
The bar's website said the restaurant is “sorry that this happened on our premises'” and that it will be “working diligently, doing anything we can to support and help the parties that were involved”.' The bar plans to reopen Saturday.