Says America ‘stands united in condemning hate and evil’
US President Donald Trump opened his Tuesday night speech by addressing the hate motivated killing of the Indian national Srinivas Kuchibhotla in Kansas last week.
“Recent threats targeting Jewish Community Centers and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries, as well as last week’s shooting in the Kansas City, remind us that while we may be a Nation divided on policies, we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all its forms,” Trump said.
In an apparent softer tone than his election rhetoric, Trump choose to respond to the Kansas shooting in the opening address itself. This was Trump’s first speech to the US Congress after winning the US Presidential elections last year.
The President’s response comes after one week of the insensible incident that left one dead and two others injured from gun shots.
“I am here tonight to deliver a message of unity and strength, and it is a message deeply delivered from my heart,” he said.
On February 22, a Olathe bar witnessed as 51-year-old white American shot dead Srinivas Kuchibhotla, a 32-year-old Indian aviation engineer working in the United States. Two other victims of this hate-motivated shooting incident include Alok Madasani, 32, and Ian Grillot, 24. Madasani and Grillot surivived.
Killer Adam Purinton was arrested some 80 miles away from the crime spot. Purinton had fled from the crime scene and narrated the incident to a bartender in an Applebee’s in Clinton, Mo., to seek a place to hide. That bartender, however, informed the police and got Purinton arrested, The Kansas City Star reported.
Purinton has been charged with one count of premeditated first-degree murder and two counts of attempted premeditated first-degree murder.
The murder sent ripples all across the US and India as people from both countries wondered if it has genesis in Donald Trump’s immigration rules.