After Kansas Shooting, Store Owner Of Indian Origin Shot Dead In The US

Close on the heels of the Kansas shooting, Harnish Patel, a 43-year-old store owner of Indian origin, has been shot dead in the front yard of his house on Thursday (2 March). Patel, who owned a convenience store, called Speedee Mart, in Lancaster County, South Carolina, closed the store and drove down to his house situated six kilometres away, where he is believed to have been shot.

Lancaster County Police, who received calls from people who dialled 911 at 11.33pm on hearing gunshots and screams, found Patel in the yard a few minutes before midnight. Denying the role of ethnicity in the crime, Sheriff Barry Faile said, “I don’t have any reason to believe that this was racially motivated.”

Shocked friends and customers who turned up at his residence to offer condolences were seen vouching for his kind and friendly nature and expressing disbelief about the incident. "Who would do anything like this to him, as good as he is to everybody," Nicole Jones, a frequent customer at Patel's store, told WBTV.