Police contact FBI after Sikh shot in arm in Seattle suburb
The gunman reportedly said "go back to your country" before the shooting, echoing a similar shooting in Kansas recently. A national Sikh group is asking for the incident to be investigated as a hate crime.
Eric Jackson, FBI Special Agent in Charge, addresses questions from the media during a press conference Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017 at the Olathe Police Department in Olathe, Kan. looking on, from left, Steve Howe, Johnson County District Attorney, Olathe Police Chief Steve Menke and Tom Beall, U.S. Attorney for District of Kansas. Witnesses said a man accused of opening fire in a crowded bar yelled at two Indian men to "get out of my country" before pulling the trigger in an attack that killed one of the men and wounded the other, as well as a third man who tried to help. Hours later, the suspect reportedly told a bartender in another town that he needed a place to hide because he had just killed two Middle Eastern men.
Tammy Ljungblad/The Kansas City Star via AP
KENT, Wash.
A Sikh man said a gunman approached him as he worked on his car in his suburban Seattle driveway and told him to "go back to your own country" before shooting him in the arm.
Police in the city of Kent are searching for the shooter and have contacted the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. It comes after an Indian man was killed and another wounded in a recent shooting at a Kansas bar that federal agencies are investigating as a hate crime after witnesses say the suspect yelled "get out of my country."
"With recent unrest and concern throughout the nation, this can get people emotionally involved, especially when (the crime) is directed at a person for how they live, how they look," Kent police Cmdr. Jarod Kasner told The News Tribune of Tacoma.
India's foreign minister, Sushma Swaraj, identified the victim on Twitter early Sunday, saying, "I am sorry to know about the attack on Deep Rai, a U.S. national of Indian origin."
She said she had spoken to Mr. Rai's father, who told her Rai is out of danger and recovering in a hospital.
Rai told police that a man he didn't know came up to him Friday night and they got into an argument, with the suspect telling Rai to go back to his homeland. He described the shooter as 6 feet tall and white with a stocky build, the Seattle Times reported. He said the man was wearing a mask covering the lower half of his face.
Sikhs have previously been the target of assaults in the U.S. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the backlash that hit Muslims around the country expanded to include those of the Sikh faith.
Male observant Sikhs often cover their heads with turbans, which are considered sacred, and refrain from shaving their beards. The faith comes from South Asia's Punjab region.
In 2012, a man shot and killed six Sikh worshippers and wounded four others at a Sikh temple near Milwaukee before killing himself.
The Sikh Coalition, a national civil rights group, asked local and federal authorities to investigate the shooting in suburban Seattle as a hate crime.
"We're early on in our investigation," Kent Police Chief Ken Thomas told the Times on Saturday. "We are treating this as a very serious incident."
Jasmit Singh, a Sikh community leader in the nearby suburb of Renton, said Rai and his family were rattled.
"We're all kind of at a loss in terms of what's going on right now, this is just bringing it home," Mr. Singh told the newspaper. "The climate of hate that has been created doesn't distinguish between anyone."
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Information from: The Seattle Times, http://www.seattletimes.com