Authorities Investigate Motive Behind Atlanta Shooter Rampage
State and federal officials are continuing to piece together the details of a shooting spree that targeted three Asian massage spas in the Atlanta area. The shooter who has been identified as 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long shot and killed eight individuals, with at least four of the individuals killed having been identified as Asian women. Long is currently being held in a Cherokee County jail without bond. His charges in Cherokee County include four counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault. Atlanta police have also charged Long with an additional four counts of murder.
Long was arrested roughly 150 miles south of Atlanta in a police pursuit hours after the shooting. Long’s parents helped authorities capture Long after they identified their son on surveillance footage. Authorities have revealed that they believe Long was heading to Florida where he was going to carry out similar attacks targeting businesses in the pornography industry.
The victims in the shooting have been identified, but not all names were immediately released to the public. Early Friday morning, the medical examiner's office released the names of the four unidentified victims in Atlanta. They include Soon Chung Park, 74; Hyun Jung Grant, 51; Suncha Kim, 69; and Yong Yue, 63. The Cherokee County Sheriff's Office identified the first victims early on in the case. They include Delaina Ashley Yaun, 33; Paul Andre Michels, 54; Xiaojie Tan, 49; and Daoyou Feng, 44.
Suspect Claims Shooting Not Race Related
The motive behind the shooting is not yet determined but authorities revealed that the suspect disclosed he targeted the massage spas because of a sexual addiction he was battling. Authorities have shared that Long had patronized at least two of the Asian spas in the past. According to police, Long was trying to battle a “temptation” he had, and targeting these spas was his method of eliminating that temptation.
The public outcry has been of the opposite sentiment as many are convinced that the shootings were racially motivated because Long targeted Asian-American women at three separate Asian-owned businesses. The Georgia chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) Legal and Policy Director Murtaza Khwaja shared, “The hate against the Asian-American community has and continues to be stoked by the incendiary tenor of the racist rhetoric of some elected officials.” Khwaja adds, "From pejoratively dubbing the coronavirus the ‘China virus’ to the xenophobic immigration policies of yesterday and today, women, lower income families, and people of color continue to be the primary victims. Yesterday’s tragedy must be investigated for what it appears to be, a hate crime."
FBI Director Christopher A. Wray shared on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” “While the motive remains still under investigation at the moment, it does not appear that the motive was racially motivated. But I really would defer to the state and local investigation on that for now.”
As the investigation unfolded, reports have come out questioning the relationship Long had with the massage spas and whether they were illicit in any way. The mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms, quickly shot down the speculation. Bottoms explained that the businesses were “legally operating” and that there was no history of the spas coming in contact with law enforcement for illegal behavior.
Bottoms adds, "We are not about to get into victim blaming, victim shaming, here. As far as we know in Atlanta, we have not had any 911 calls from that location. I believe one minor call on someone stealing some keys. So we don't know additional information about what his motives were, but we certainly will not begin to blame victims."
Bottoms does not speculate about the motive but she does share, “Whatever the motivation was for this guy, we know that the majority of the victims were Asian,” Bottoms adds in reference to a recent rise in discrimination against Asians in America, “We also know that this is an issue that is happening across the country. It is unacceptable, it is hateful and it has to stop.”
Police Capitan Under Scrutiny
Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Jay Baker has come under fire after a press conference about the shooting in which he described Long in a manner that many argued humanized the shooter. Capt. Baker explained of Long, “He was pretty much fed up and kind of at the end of his rope. Yesterday was a really bad day for him and this is what he did.”
As outrage grew at how Capt. Baker handled the media coverage of Long, internet sleuths took to Baker's social media where a Facebook post was found in which Baker promoted t-shirts that touted Anti-Asian sentiment. The t-shirts in question bore the slogan “IMPORTED VIRUS FROM CHY-NA” in reference to the coronavirus. Baker's post read, "Place your order while they last."
After the controversial press conference, Capt. Baker was removed from being a spokesman on the case. Sheriff Frank Reynolds issued a letter which read in part “on behalf of the dedicated women and men of the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office we regret any heartache Captain Baker's words may have caused.”
The shooting is the latest highest-profile case of Asian-American discrimination amid the coronavirus pandemic. In the early days of the pandemic, many accuse President Trump of churning up anti-Asian sentiment by referring to the pandemic as the "Chinese virus." This sentiment has led many to believe an attack like this is racially motivated because of the current climate toward the Asian community.
