Bar shooting suspect asked victims if 'status was legal'

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- An Indian man wounded in an apparently racially motivated shooting that killed his friend at a suburban Kansas City bar told detectives the gunman asked whether their "status was legal" before he opened fire, according to an affidavit released Monday.

Adam Purinton, 51, is jailed in Johnson County, Kansas, on $2 million bond on murder and attempted murder charges in the Feb. 22 shooting at Austins Bar & Grill in Olathe, Kansas. The FBI is investigating it as a hate crime.

The affidavit described the Navy veteran as wearing a white T-shirt "with military style medals on it, and a white scarf around his head" when he killed Srinivas Kuchibhotla and wounded his friend, Alok Madasani.

A third man, Ian Grillot, was shot and wounded when he intervened.

It wasn't clear from the affidavit whether Purinton had medals pinned to the shirt or whether the T-shirt bore images of medals.

A detective wrote in the affidavit Grillot and another person asked Purinton to leave when he confronted Kuchibhotla and Madasani in the bar. Some of the affidavit was redacted, and it offered little information about what was said, other than Madasani told detectives Purinton asked whether the Indian men's "status was legal." Both men worked as engineers for GPS-device maker Garmin in Olathe.

Employees escorted Purinton from the bar, but he returned with a handgun about 30 minutes later, the affidavit said. Madasani told a detective he heard people saying, "He's back and he has a gun!" and he was shot in the leg.

Grillot told a detective he chased Purinton because he believed he was out of ammunition, but he was wrong and Purinton shot him once.

The bullet went through his hand and entered his chest.

The affidavit said Purinton, of Olathe, was a regular customer at the bar and that employees were able to identify him through card receipts.

Authorities arrested him hours later at an Applebee's restaurant some 70 miles away in Clinton, Missouri. A bartender at the restaurant told a 911 dispatcher that the man had admitted to shooting two people, but that he described them as Iranian, according to a recording of that call.