‘Get out of my country,’ witnesses say gunman yelled

Working and traveling across the United States, Indian aviation engineer Srinivas Kuchibhotla was living his American dream first in Texas, then in Iowa and ultimately in Kansas.

That dream was shattered Wednesday in what authorities are investigating as a possible hate crime that has drawn international scrutiny.

A 51-year-old man is accused of shooting and killing Kuchibhotla and wounding his colleague, Alok Madasani, both 32, as they enjoyed an after-work drink at Austin's Bar in Olathe, Kan., about 20 miles southwest of Kansas City.

Eyewitnesses told reporters the attacker shouted 'get out of my country” and used racial slurs while opening fire on the Indian men. The shooting also injured 24-year-old Ian Grillot, another patron at Austin's, who apparently tried to intervene.

Police identified the suspected assailant as Adam W. Purinton, described as a Navy veteran, and said he was taken into custody Thursday in Missouri.

Kuchibhotla and Madasani each spent more than five years working for the Rockwell Collins avionics and information technology company in Cedar Rapids. After about late 2013, they moved on, eventually going to work for tech firm Garmin International.

Even as authorities said they had not yet confirmed a motive, relatives of the men said they feared the shooting underscores a climate of fear and xenophobia in the United States - which some of them traced to the election of Republican Donald Trump as president.

Madasani's father, Jaganmohan Reddy, told the Hindustan Times in India he has recently begun to asking his son to return home, fearing that he might not be safe in the country's racially charged atmosphere.

'The situation seems to be pretty bad after Trump took over as the U.S. president. I appeal to all the parents in India not to send their children to the United States in the present circumstances,” Reddy said.

Friday at the White House, spokesman Sean Spicer said that while any loss of life is tragic, it would be absurd to link the attack to Trump's 'America First” stance on immigration and jobs.

Kuchibhotla was one of many ambitious young Indians who go abroad each year in search of a better education and career prospects. More than 3 million Indians live in the United States.

After obtaining a bachelor's degree in technology in India, Kuchibhotla left his hometown of Hyderabad for El Paso, Texas, to pursue a master's in electrical engineering, according to his LinkedIn profile.

He then worked as a software and systems engineer at Rockwell Collins in Cedar Rapids, starting in 2008, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Kuchibhotla was the kind of job candidate every hiring manager wanted on his team, his line supervisor at Rockwell, Rod Larson, told the Kansas City Star.

He was the top pick in 2007 for a software engineer position at Rockwell. When Kuchibhotla came in for round-robin interviews, Larson knew he would try to snag him for his department.

'He was very sharp. A top-of-his-class kind of guy,” he told the Star. 'His personality was exceptional. He was the kind of employee every manager would want.”

Larson said Kuchibhotla later was moved from his auto-flight department and became instrumental in helping his company develop its first 'fly-by-wire” aircraft, in which computers take the place of manual controls. Kuchibhotla's LinkedIn page shows he later was promoted to a senior systems engineer.

'Our sincere condolences go out to the family, friends, and co-workers of Srinivas Kuchibhotla and Alok Madasani, including our own employees who worked with them at Rockwell Collins from 2008-2014,” the company said in a statement.

Married about four years ago, Kuchibhotla and his wife spent their early years of marriage watching Bollywood movies, celebrating New Year's Eve by clicking selfies and traveling across the United States.

Later, Kuchibhotla, who called himself 'Srinu” on his Facebook page, switched jobs to join Garmin as an engineer, working on designs and flight test activities.

On Wednesday, he and Madasani were at the Olathe bar when the gunman opened fire on them.

The co-workers were regulars at the watering hole, which they visited once or twice a week to sit on the patio and drink whiskey in the early evening, according to local media reports.

'They are super-nice guys. They would sit, have a cigarette, have a few drinks and pay their tab and leave,” Garret Bohnen, a bar staff member, told the Star.

Purinton faces one count of premeditated first-degree murder and two counts of attempted premeditated first-degree murder. His bail was set at $2 million.

The Washington Post and Reuters contributed to this report.