Six of the eight people killed were women of Asian descent, setting off a new wave of outrage and fear.
A gunman’s rampage that killed eight people, including six women of Asian descent, in the Atlanta area this week has set off a new wave of fear and outrage among Asian-Americans, coming in a year of anti-Asian violence across the country. The suspect who was charged on Wednesday with the killings at three spas told detectives that he had frequented massage parlors in the past and had carried out the attacks as a way to eliminate temptation. Investigators said they had not ruled out a racial motive, even as the suspect, a 21-year-old white man from the Atlanta suburbs, denied being driven by such bigotry. He told the police that he had a “sexual addiction” and saw the spas as an outlet for something “that he shouldn’t be doing,” said Capt. Jay Baker of the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office. “He was attempting to take out that temptation,” Captain Baker said. All but one of the victims were women. Still, around Atlanta and throughout the country, officials and community leaders said it could not be ignored that most of those killed in the rampage had been of Asian descent. “Racially motivated violence should be called out for exactly what it is and we must stop making excuses and rebranding it as economic anxiety or sexual addiction,” Representative Marilyn Strickland, a Democrat of Washington State, said on the floor of Congress on Wednesday. “As a woman who is Black and Korean I am acutely aware of how it feels to be erased or ignored.” In Washington, President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the first woman and the first Asian-American to hold the office, separately weighed in on the rampage. Mr. Biden noted that the motive for the killings had yet to be determined, but he spoke of “the brutality against Asian-Americans for the last couple months,” which he called “very, very troubling.” On Wednesday afternoon, the suspect, Robert Aaron Long, was charged with eight counts of murder in connection with the attacks. He was being held at the Cherokee County jail. The authorities said the shooting spree began shortly before 5 p.m. on Tuesday at Young’s Asian Massage in Acworth, Ga., a culturally diverse community about 30 miles northwest of Atlanta. Next door to the spa, Martha Enciso and her co-workers at Perfecto Beauty Salon were working to a background of Spanish-language music when they heard what sounded like someone pounding on the walls. They did not make much of it at the time, she said. “Who could imagine what was happening there?” Four people were later found fatally shot at Young’s Asian Massage.
