According to witness accounts, the incident, at Austin's Bar and Grill at Mur-Len Shop on 151st St. and Mur-Len Rd., began as patrons were watching a basketball game; a man started yelling
racial slurs at the victims, asking them whether their "
status was legal". The man had been escorted from the premises after he was confronted by restaurant staff and other guests, but returned later with a gun and began firing. The suspect, Adam Purinton, was arrested while drinking at a restaurant bar in
Clinton, Missouri, about away. He had attracted the barman's attention by saying he needed a place to hide because he had just killed one
Middle Eastern man and injured another.
The perpetrator Adam Purinton (born May 21, 1965), age 51, was arrested for the killing. After fleeing the bar, he was pursued by police in the Kansas City area who also went to his home. He eluded them, but was arrested after he was said to have admitted to "killing two Middle Eastern men" at a bar to which he had fled, 82 miles from the scene of the crimes. Purinton was said to have been a
drinker whose alcohol consumption increased and whose behavior rapidly deteriorated after his father died from pancreatic cancer, 18 months before the crimes. Prior to his arrest, he had recently held a series of
unskilled jobs including in hardware and liquor stores and as a dishwasher in a pizza parlor. He is a
United States Navy veteran, had been an air traffic controller, and previously worked in information technology. ==Legal proceedings==