Suspect in Georgia spa attacks charged with murder
By Richard Fausset and Nicholas Bogel Burroughs
ACWORTH, Ga. — The man who police say went on a rampage at three spas in the Atlanta area, killing eight people, was charged Wednesday (17) with several counts of murder in connection with the attacks.
The brazen shootings, which took the lives of six people 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 gunman told police that he had a “sexual addiction” and had carried out the shootings at the massage parlours to eliminate his “temptation” authorities said Wednesday. He also said that he had frequented massage parlours in the past and launched the attacks as a form of vengeance. All but one of the victims were women, 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,” 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.”
Capt. Jay Baker of the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office said Robert Aaron Long, 21, had been charged with four counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault for the shooting at a spa in that county. Officials have not yet announced charges in connection with the attacks on two spas in the city of Atlanta.
Baker said the gunman had told them he was driving to Florida when he was caught after the shootings on Tuesday (16) evening, and that he said he may have been trying to commit similar violence at a business connected to the “porn industry” there. He was stopped after his parents alerted police that they believed their son might be the suspect, and police were able to track his phone.
Sheriff Frank Reynolds of Cherokee County said the gunman may have “frequented these places in the past and may have been lashing out.”
The police arrested Long, of Cherokee County, who is white, about 150 miles south of Atlanta after a manhunt, authorities said. They had earlier released a surveillance image of a suspect near a Hyundai Tucson outside one of the massage parlours. Baker said Long 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,” Bryant said. “We are just not there as of yet.”
A Justice Department official said Wednesday that Attorney General Merrick Garland was briefed on the shooting, and the department would likely have more to say on the matter later that day.
-New York Times