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8 Dead in Atlanta Spa Shootings, With Fears of Anti-Chinese Bias
Last Updated
March 19, 2021, 2:13 p.m. ETMarch 19, 2021
March 19, 2021, 2:13 p.m. ET
The man who police say went on a rampage at three spas in the Atlanta area has been charged with eight counts of murder in connection with the attacks.
ACWORTH, Ga. — The man who police say went on a rampage at three spas in the Atlanta area, killing eight people, was charged on Wednesday with eight counts of murder in connection with the attacks.
The brazen shootings, which took the lives of six women of Asian descent, stirred considerable outrage and fear in the Asian-American community. Investigators said they had not ruled out bias as a motivating factor even as the suspect denied such racial animus once in custody.
The suspect told the police that he had a “sexual addiction” and had carried out the shootings at the massage parlors to eliminate his “temptation,” the authorities said on Wednesday. He also said that he had frequented massage parlors in the past and launched the attacks as a form of vengeance. All but one of the victims were women, the police said.
Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta said that regardless of the determination about motive, the tragedy was clear.
“Whatever the motivation was for this guy, we know that the majority of the victims were Asian,” Ms. Bottoms said. “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.”
The authorities charged Robert Aaron Long, 21, on Wednesday with eight counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault in connection with the shootings. Four of the murder counts and the assault charge stem from the first shooting, in Cherokee County, and the other four murder counts relate to the shootings at two spas in the city of Atlanta less than an hour later, the authorities said.
Capt. Jay Baker of the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office said that Mr. Long had told the police he was driving to Florida when he was caught after the shootings on Tuesday evening, and that he said he may have been trying to commit similar violence at a business connected to the “**** industry” there. He was stopped after his parents alerted the police that they believed their son might be the suspect, and the police were able to track his phone.
Sheriff Frank Reynolds of Cherokee County said the suspect may have “frequented these places in the past and may have been lashing out.”
The police arrested Mr. Long, who is white, about 150 miles south of Atlanta after a manhunt, the authorities said. They had earlier released a surveillance image of a suspect near a Hyundai Tucson outside one of the massage parlors. Mr. Baker said that Mr. Long, of Cherokee County, had admitted to the shootings and that he appeared to be acting alone.
Rodney Bryant, the acting chief of the Atlanta Police Department, said it was not yet clear whether the shooting spree would be classified as a hate crime.
“We are still early in this investigation, so we cannot make that determination at this moment,” Chief Bryant said. “We are just not there as of yet.”
our people died in the first shooting, at Young’s Asian Massage near Acworth, a northwest suburb of Atlanta, Mr. Baker said. That shooting, in which a Hispanic man was injured, was reported around 5 p.m.
At 5:47 p.m., the Atlanta police said, officers responded to a robbery at Gold Spa in the northeast part of the city, where they found the bodies of three women with gunshot wounds. While the officers were at the scene, the police said, they received a report of shots fired at the Aromatherapy Spa across the street, where they found the body of another woman.
A 911 caller who said she was hiding in the back of Gold Spa told the emergency operator that a “white guy” had a gun, according to audio recordings released by the Atlanta Police Department.
She was not sure where the gunman was, she told the operator, because she was hiding, and was unsure what he was wearing. “I don’t know,” she pleaded in response to questions. “Please just come.”
— Richard Fausset, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs and Marie Fazio
Six of the eight victims were women of Asian descent.
A body being removed from Gold Spa massage parlor after a shooting late Tuesday in Atlanta.Credit...Brynn Anderson/Associated Press
Six of the eight people killed in the shootings at Atlanta-area spas on Tuesday were women of Asian descent, raising fears that they could have been targeted because of their race, even as the police said it was too early to know.
On Wednesday, the police named the victims of the shooting at Young’s Asian Massage in Acworth, Ga., as Delaina Ashley Yaun, 33, of Acworth; Paul Andre Michels, 54, of Atlanta; Xiaojie Tan, 49, of Kennesaw; and Daoyou Feng, 44.
One person, Elcias R. Hernandez-Ortiz, 30, of Acworth, was injured.
An official from the South Korean Consulate in Atlanta, citing the Foreign Ministry in Seoul, confirmed on Wednesday that four of the eight killed in the shooting spree were ethnic Koreans. But the nationalities of the four women were not immediately known, the official said.
Ms. Yaun was a customer at Young’s Asian Massage and had been planning a date night with her husband, her half sister, Dana Toole, said. She was killed, and her husband survived after locking himself in a nearby room as gunshots rang out, Ms. Toole said.
“He’s not OK,” Ms. Toole said about her sister’s husband. “He’s taking it hard.”
Ms. Yaun was one of four siblings who grew up in Acworth, and had worked as a server at a Waffle House restaurant. She raised a 13-year-old son as a single mother and had an 8-month-old daughter, Ms. Toole said.
“It was just all about family,” Ms. Toole said. “Whatever we’d do, we’d do it together.”
Now the shooting has left the family in shock.
“It doesn’t seem real. I expect to see her walking through the door any minute. It just hasn’t quite sunk in yet,” Ms. Toole said.
“My eyes hurt so bad because I’ve been crying so much,” she said. “It’s just hard right now for us to even think about moving forward, because she’s not here.”
Image
Young’s Asian Massage in Acworth, Ga., the morning after a gunman shot and killed eight people at three separate locations.Credit...Nicole Craine for The New York Times
Young’s Asian Massage is tucked in a modest strip mall, with a beauty salon on one side and a boutique on the other. Like much of suburban Georgia, the mall is a diverse place, with panaderias and Latin businesses and American-style chain restaurants.
On Tuesday night, the blue lights of police vehicles cast an eerie glow as detectives worked inside the spa.
Rita Barron, 47, the owner of Gabby’s Boutique next door, was with a group of onlookers standing near a used car lot. She said she had been with a customer when she heard noises through the wall that sounded like claps — and then women screaming.
She called 911, and soon saw victims being taken out by police officers.
Nearby, a wail of anguish went up from another cluster of people waiting for any news. Three dropped to the pavement, two of them embracing and shaking as they cried.
www.nytimes.com
Last Updated
March 19, 2021, 2:13 p.m. ETMarch 19, 2021
March 19, 2021, 2:13 p.m. ET
The man who police say went on a rampage at three spas in the Atlanta area has been charged with eight counts of murder in connection with the attacks.
ACWORTH, Ga. — The man who police say went on a rampage at three spas in the Atlanta area, killing eight people, was charged on Wednesday with eight counts of murder in connection with the attacks.
The brazen shootings, which took the lives of six women of Asian descent, stirred considerable outrage and fear in the Asian-American community. Investigators said they had not ruled out bias as a motivating factor even as the suspect denied such racial animus once in custody.
The suspect told the police that he had a “sexual addiction” and had carried out the shootings at the massage parlors to eliminate his “temptation,” the authorities said on Wednesday. He also said that he had frequented massage parlors in the past and launched the attacks as a form of vengeance. All but one of the victims were women, the police said.
Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta said that regardless of the determination about motive, the tragedy was clear.
“Whatever the motivation was for this guy, we know that the majority of the victims were Asian,” Ms. Bottoms said. “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.”
The authorities charged Robert Aaron Long, 21, on Wednesday with eight counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault in connection with the shootings. Four of the murder counts and the assault charge stem from the first shooting, in Cherokee County, and the other four murder counts relate to the shootings at two spas in the city of Atlanta less than an hour later, the authorities said.
Capt. Jay Baker of the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office said that Mr. Long had told the police he was driving to Florida when he was caught after the shootings on Tuesday evening, and that he said he may have been trying to commit similar violence at a business connected to the “**** industry” there. He was stopped after his parents alerted the police that they believed their son might be the suspect, and the police were able to track his phone.
Sheriff Frank Reynolds of Cherokee County said the suspect may have “frequented these places in the past and may have been lashing out.”
The police arrested Mr. Long, who is white, about 150 miles south of Atlanta after a manhunt, the authorities said. They had earlier released a surveillance image of a suspect near a Hyundai Tucson outside one of the massage parlors. Mr. Baker said that Mr. Long, of Cherokee County, had admitted to the shootings and that he appeared to be acting alone.
Rodney Bryant, the acting chief of the Atlanta Police Department, said it was not yet clear whether the shooting spree would be classified as a hate crime.
“We are still early in this investigation, so we cannot make that determination at this moment,” Chief Bryant said. “We are just not there as of yet.”
our people died in the first shooting, at Young’s Asian Massage near Acworth, a northwest suburb of Atlanta, Mr. Baker said. That shooting, in which a Hispanic man was injured, was reported around 5 p.m.
At 5:47 p.m., the Atlanta police said, officers responded to a robbery at Gold Spa in the northeast part of the city, where they found the bodies of three women with gunshot wounds. While the officers were at the scene, the police said, they received a report of shots fired at the Aromatherapy Spa across the street, where they found the body of another woman.
A 911 caller who said she was hiding in the back of Gold Spa told the emergency operator that a “white guy” had a gun, according to audio recordings released by the Atlanta Police Department.
She was not sure where the gunman was, she told the operator, because she was hiding, and was unsure what he was wearing. “I don’t know,” she pleaded in response to questions. “Please just come.”
— Richard Fausset, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs and Marie Fazio
Six of the eight victims were women of Asian descent.
A body being removed from Gold Spa massage parlor after a shooting late Tuesday in Atlanta.Credit...Brynn Anderson/Associated Press
Six of the eight people killed in the shootings at Atlanta-area spas on Tuesday were women of Asian descent, raising fears that they could have been targeted because of their race, even as the police said it was too early to know.
On Wednesday, the police named the victims of the shooting at Young’s Asian Massage in Acworth, Ga., as Delaina Ashley Yaun, 33, of Acworth; Paul Andre Michels, 54, of Atlanta; Xiaojie Tan, 49, of Kennesaw; and Daoyou Feng, 44.
One person, Elcias R. Hernandez-Ortiz, 30, of Acworth, was injured.
An official from the South Korean Consulate in Atlanta, citing the Foreign Ministry in Seoul, confirmed on Wednesday that four of the eight killed in the shooting spree were ethnic Koreans. But the nationalities of the four women were not immediately known, the official said.
Ms. Yaun was a customer at Young’s Asian Massage and had been planning a date night with her husband, her half sister, Dana Toole, said. She was killed, and her husband survived after locking himself in a nearby room as gunshots rang out, Ms. Toole said.
“He’s not OK,” Ms. Toole said about her sister’s husband. “He’s taking it hard.”
Ms. Yaun was one of four siblings who grew up in Acworth, and had worked as a server at a Waffle House restaurant. She raised a 13-year-old son as a single mother and had an 8-month-old daughter, Ms. Toole said.
“It was just all about family,” Ms. Toole said. “Whatever we’d do, we’d do it together.”
Now the shooting has left the family in shock.
“It doesn’t seem real. I expect to see her walking through the door any minute. It just hasn’t quite sunk in yet,” Ms. Toole said.
“My eyes hurt so bad because I’ve been crying so much,” she said. “It’s just hard right now for us to even think about moving forward, because she’s not here.”
Image
Young’s Asian Massage in Acworth, Ga., the morning after a gunman shot and killed eight people at three separate locations.Credit...Nicole Craine for The New York Times
Young’s Asian Massage is tucked in a modest strip mall, with a beauty salon on one side and a boutique on the other. Like much of suburban Georgia, the mall is a diverse place, with panaderias and Latin businesses and American-style chain restaurants.
On Tuesday night, the blue lights of police vehicles cast an eerie glow as detectives worked inside the spa.
Rita Barron, 47, the owner of Gabby’s Boutique next door, was with a group of onlookers standing near a used car lot. She said she had been with a customer when she heard noises through the wall that sounded like claps — and then women screaming.
She called 911, and soon saw victims being taken out by police officers.
Nearby, a wail of anguish went up from another cluster of people waiting for any news. Three dropped to the pavement, two of them embracing and shaking as they cried.
8 Dead in Atlanta Spa Shootings, With Fears of Anti-Asian Bias (Published 2021)
The man who police say went on a rampage at three spas in the Atlanta area has been charged with eight counts of murder in connection with the attacks.
