Anti-Asian Fears: Man Charged With Murder For Killing 8 At Atlanta Spas; Six Victims Were Asian
A 21-year-old white man identified as Robert Aaron Long has been arrested charged with eight counts of murder over the killing of eight people in three spas in Atlanta on Tuesday.
According to NBC, police say the suspect has been charged with eight counts of murder and homicide and one count of aggravated assault in Cherokee County.
Six Asian women died in the attacks on Tuesday, prompting widespread concern that the killings could be the latest in a surge of hate crimes against Asian Americans.
Long was arrested in southwest Georgia, around 150 miles south of Atlanta, and taken into custody in Crisp County.
The first shooting began around 5pm onTuesday, some 30 miles north of Atlanta when five people were shot at a massage parlor, Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Capt. Jay Baker said.
Baker said two of the victims died at the scene. Three were taken to a hospital, where two of them also died.
About an hour later, Atlanta police responded to calls for a robbery in progress and found three women dead at Gold Spa, Atlanta Police Sgt. John Chafee said.
While still at the scene, police received calls for shots fired across the street at Aromatherapy Spa, where they found another woman fatally shot.
Out of the eight victims, six of them were Asian women.
On Wednesday, authorities held a press conference and announced that Long told them his actions were not racially motivated and he frequented some of the spas where the shootings happened.
Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office spokesman, Capt. Jay Baker said Long claimed he has a “sexual addiction” and the parlors were a “temptation” he wanted to “eliminate.”
All three spas attacked are listed on Rubmaps.ch, an erotic review site that allows users to search for and review illicit massage parlors. The site is the most popular of its kind, where buyers who call themselves “hobbyists” or “mongers” looking for sex go to find and share information, according to a study by Polaris, a nonprofit group that operates the National Human Trafficking Hotline.
The murder suspect also told investigators that he was on his way to Florida to “do more acts” there.
In his remark, Atlanta Police Chief, Rodney Bryant said it was too soon in the investigation to say whether the shootings were a hate crime. “We are just not there as of yet,” Bryant said during a Wednesday morning news conference.
The killings came amid a recent wave of attacks against Asian Americans that coincided with the spread of the coronavirus across the United States.
