In February, a 51-year-old veteran opened fire on two Indian men, killing one, in an Olathe, Kansas, bar after after allegedly shouting slurs and warning them to “get out of my country.” Another man, 24-year-old Ian Grillot, tried to intervene, and was injured in the hand and chest. After the shooting, which federal authorities are investigating as a possible hate crime, Grillot said from his hospital bed: “I was just doing what anyone should’ve done for another human being. It’s not about where he’s from or his ethnicity. We’re all humans.”
Grillot’s bravery is now being honored as far away as India, the New York Times reports. Indian officials invited him to visit the country, and the Indian-American community here in the U.S. has helped raise money for him. India House Houston, a Texas nonprofit, gifted him a $100,000 check over the weekend to help him buy a house. Jiten Agarwal, who chaired the charity’s gala, said of Grillot: “This is the real America.”
“It is not every day that one meets a genuine hero — a person who risks his life for another, and takes a bullet for a complete stranger,” Agarwal said in a statement. “Ian Grillot is a man who reminds us of the promise of America and its greatness.”
