Law enforcement authorities have a suspect in custody, but have not released a motive for shootings Tuesday evening at three Atlanta-area massage parlors. The attacks left eight dead and one wounded, “many of them women of Asian descent,” the Associated Press reports:
The attacks began around 5 p.m., when five people were shot at Youngs Asian Massage Parlor in a strip mall near a rural area in Acworth, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Atlanta, Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Capt. Jay Baker said. Two people died at the scene and three were transported to a hospital where two of them also died, Baker said.
There were more shootings to come.
Around 5:50 p.m., police in the Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta, responding to a call of a robbery in progress, found three women dead from apparent gunshot wounds at Gold Spa. While they were at that scene, they learned of a call reporting shots fired at another spa across the street, Aromatherapy Spa, and found a woman who appeared to have been shot dead inside the business.
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that four of the slain women were of Korean descent. Their nationality is still undetermined.
The Georgia State Patrol apprehended the single suspect, Robert Aaron Long, 21, of Woodstock, Ga., about 150 miles south of Atlanta.
Police said video footage showed the suspect’s vehicle in the area of the Atlanta spas about the time of those attacks as well. That, as well as other video evidence, “suggests it is extremely likely our suspect is the same as Cherokee County’s, who is in custody,” Atlanta police said in a statement. Atlanta and Cherokee County authorities were working to confirm the cases are related.
There is no confirmation at this time that the killings were racially motivated, however police in New York City and Seattle have stepped up their presence in Asian-America communities.
The Atlanta killings follow a wave of attacks against Asian Americans in the last year (Los Angeles Times):
Since coronavirus shutdowns began last March, thousands of Asian Americans have faced racist verbal and physical attacks or have been shunned by others, according to a study released Tuesday.
The report by Stop AAPI Hate documents 3,795 racially motivated attacks against Asian Americans from March to February, noting that the number is likely a fraction of the attacks that occurred, because many were not reported to the group.
Stop AAPI Hate formed last March in response to attacks related to the perception that Asians were responsible for the coronavirus because of its origins in Wuhan, China. The group did not collect data in previous years to show whether attacks against Asians have increased during the pandemic.
The Anti-Defamation League’s records go much further back. An ADL press release this morning indicates white supremacist rhetoric spiked to “an all-time high” across the U.S. in 2020:
ADL’s Center on Extremism (COE) tracked the distribution of racist, antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ fliers, stickers, posters and banners by various members of far right and white supremacist groups. The annual report found that at least 30 known white supremacist groups were behind hate propaganda efforts, affecting 49 states in 2020.
The report itself states:
The barrage of propaganda, which overwhelmingly features veiled white supremacist language with a patriotic slant, is an effort to normalize white supremacists’ message and bolster recruitment efforts while targeting minority groups including Jews, Blacks, Muslims, non-white immigrants, and the LGBTQ community.
“How many Timothy McVeighs attacked the Capitol on January 6th?” MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell asked Tuesday night on “The Last Word.” How many were capable of the level of violence McVeigh showed in murdering 168 people including children? McVeigh hoped to be the catalyst for bringing down the government he had sworn to defend while in the U.S. Army.
Americans filled with hate are everywhere, just as the poster in the lower right corner of the top image declares. That hate is not directed only at the government.
