The Indian-origin owner of a petrol station in Georgia was killed on his daughter’s birthday in a brazen daylight robbery in front of a bank.
Amit Patel, 45, was shot during an apparent robbery while making a deposit at the bank.
His business partner Vinnie Patel said that after depositing the weekend sales receipt from his petrol station at the bank, he was planning to celebrate his daughter’s birthday.
Amit Patel is survived by his wife and daughter. He has been described as a “super nice guy” who ran an efficient operation and “did whatever he could” for his employees. Friends have set up a GoFundMe page to raise money to help his wife Roshni Patel, who becomes the sole caregiver of their 3-year-old daughter, her grandmother-in-law, retired father-in-law, and mother-in-law with polio, as reported by WRBL.
The family hail from Nadiad, Gujarat.
Columbus Mayor Skip Henderson has stated that “every law enforcement is absolutely committed to make a quick arrest” in the case. Amit Patel’s killing marks the 65th homicide this year in Columbus, which has a population of 206,922 and is Georgia state’s second largest city.
The US has seen an upsurge in homicides in recent years, recording a nearly 30 per cent jump to 21,570 in 2020 from the 16,669 recorded in 2019, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Campaigns continue in the United States to cut the police budgets as well as to reduce the number of law enforcement personnel or scrap police departments in the wake of the #BlackLivesMatter protests last year.