Sikh man shot, told to get out of US
Manhunt underway; Washington attack draws global response
The U.S. ambassador to India and the Indian foreign minister tweeted words of support Sunday to a Sikh man shot near Seattle, another in a series of troubling and sometimes deadly hate-driven attacks across the nation.
Deep Rai, 39, told police he was approached outside his Kent, Washington, home late Friday by a masked man who, after a brief argument, told Rai to “go back to your own country” and shot him in the arm.
A manhunt was underway for the shooter. The national Sikh Coalition asked authorities to investigate the case as a hate crime, and Kent police Chief Ken Thomas said he had reached out to the FBI.
Thomas called Rai “absolutely credible” and said investigators believe the attack took place “as he has described.”
“I am sorry to know about the attack on Deep Rai a US national of Indian origin,” tweeted Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj. She said she had spoken to Sardar Harpal Singh, Rai’s father, and Rai was hospitalized but out of danger.
Ambassador MaryKay Loss Carlson also tweeted a message of empathy.
“Saddened by shooting in WA. Wishes for quick and full recovery. As @POTUS said we condemn ‘hate and evil in all its forms,’ ” Carlson said.
Male Sikhs often wear turbans and don’t shave their beards. The faith originated in India’s Punjab region; more than 500,000 Sikhs now live in the U.S. Rai, who is from that region, is a U.S. citizen.
Sikhs have been targeted before. In 2012, six Sikhs were killed in a shooting rampage at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Gunman Wade Michael Page, 40, who had neoNazi and white supremacist affiliations, fatally shot himself after a gunbattle with police.
“This is the first incident of this magnitude that I’m aware of in the city of Kent,” Thomas said of Friday’s shooting.
The Southern Poverty Law Center and other groups have accused President Donald Trump of fueling anger against minorities with his blistering immigration rhetoric. Trump spoke out against hate crime in his speech to Congress last week, saying the United States “stands united in condemning hate and evil in all its forms.”
In Missouri, a former journalist was arrested Friday, accused of issuing at least eight bomb threats to Jewish community centers and other Jewish locations. More than 100 such threats have been made in recent weeks.
In Kansas, the FBI is investigating the fatal shooting of an Indian man in a Kansas bar last month as a hate crime. Adam Purinton, 51, is charged with first-degree murder after police say he returned to Austin’s Bar and Grill in Olathe after being escorted out; yelled, “Get out of my country”; and opened fire.