Eight people, six of whom were Asian women, were killed in three shootings at spas near and in the Atlanta area on March 16. Police officers initially discovered five people shot at
a massage spa in Acworth, Georgia, about 30 miles north of Atlanta. Two victims were found dead at the scene, and two others died later at the hospital.
Less than an hour later, Atlanta police officers responded to another shooting at the Gold Massage Spa in Atlanta, Georgia, where three women were found dead. Moments later, officers received reports of a third shooting across the street at Aromatherapy Massage, where one person was found dead at the scene.
The suspect, a 21-year-old white male, was arrested and taken into custody later that night. A 9mm handgun was found inside of his vehicle. Cherokee Co. Captain Jay Baker said that the suspect admitted to planning the shootings and claimed that he saw the spas as a “temptation that he wanted to eliminate” due to “sexual addiction.”
The police captain went on, describing the suspect as “fed up and at the end of his rope” and said it was too early to determine if the attacks were racially or politically motivated. Baker’s and other comments from Atlanta police officials have come under fire from civil rights groups and activists, who link the attack with the rise of anti-Asian American sentiment in the United States.
“Hypersexualization of Asian American women is part of the racism towards Asian Americans, and to say that sexual addiction is an excuse or a reason to go on a mass killing rampage is ridiculous,” said Helen Zia, political activist and author, in an interview with “CBS This Morning.”
“He’s going to take the word of a mass shooter, who happens to be white, against the lived experience of the Asian-American community.
“I couldn’t believe that a police captain was recounting the bad day that the killer had, without a shred of empathy for the really bad day that the eight victims and their families had and the incredible grief that the whole community is going through.
“And this is the kind of thing that makes people question law enforcement and whether they are really there for the people that they are supposed to be protecting.” Rep. Judy Chu,
D-Calif, has also said that she believes that the three Atlanta shootings were race-related.
“I do strongly believe that this is a hate crime,” Chu said. “This is a 21-year-old white male who chose, as his first victim, a business that was called Young’s Asian Massage. Then he
drove for 27 miles to another spot where he hit two more Asian spas.
“If his only problem was sex addiction, then he could have had his choice in those 27 miles of any place that he could have gone to.”
Last month the nonprofit organization Stop AAPI Hate released its annual report that tracks discrimination against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and said that it has received over 3,000 firsthand reports of anti-Asian hate from across the country in the last year since March 2020, compared to the around 100 reports in previous years.
