ATLANTA (AP) A white gunman was charged Wednesday with killing eight people at three Atlanta-area massage parlors in an attack that sent terror through the Asian American community, which has increasingly been targeted during the coronavirus pandemic.
A day after the shootings, investigators were trying to unravel what might have compelled 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long to commit the worst mass killing in the U.S. in almost two years.
Long told police that Tuesday’s attack was not racially motivated. He claimed to have a “sex addiction,” and authorities said he apparently lashed out at what he saw as sources of temptation. But those statements spurred outrage and widespread skepticism given the locations and that six of the eight victims were women of Asian descent.
ATLANTA – A white man accused of killing eight people, most of whom were of Asian descent, at massage parlours in the Atlanta area told police the attack was not racially motivated and that he potentially had a “sex addiction,” officials said Wednesday.
Still, authorities said they were investigating whether the deaths were hate crimes amid concerns over a wave of attacks on Asian Americans. Six of the victims were identified as Asian and seven were women.
It was not clear if Robert Aaron Long, 21, ever went to the parlours where the shootings occurred; one official said he had while another indicated he may have only visited businesses like them. Authorities also said he was planning to go to Florida in a plot to attack “some type of porn industry.”
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WASHINGTON, March 17, 2021 /PRNewswire/ Below is a statement by U.S. Conference of Mayors President and Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer on the shootings in Atlanta: The shootings last night, resulting in the deaths of eight people in and around Atlanta, remind us of the terrible toll that has resulted from the easy availability of guns in our country and what happens when guns get into the wrong hands. This carnage continues to be an all-too common occurrence in our lives ripping communities, families and our country apart. The U.S. Conference of Mayors urges the Senate to quickly consider and pass the critical legislation adopted by the House last week that will greatly strengthen the nation s background check system.
ATLANTA – A white gunman accused of killing eight people, most of them of Asian descent, at three Atlanta-area massage parlours claimed to have a “sex addiction” and apparently lashed out at what he saw as sources of temptation, officials said Wednesday.
The bloodshed immediately raised fears of another hate crime against Asian Americans. But Robert Aaron Long, 21, told police the attack was not racially motivated, and police said it appeared it may not have been. Six of the victims were identified as Asian and seven were women.
The attack was the sixth mass killing this year in the U.S., and the deadliest since the August 2019 Dayton killing that took the lives of nine people, according to a database compiled by The Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University.