A particular gunman has barged into three different spas in Atlanta, Georgia, and committed open fire on all of his victims. Unfortunately, a total of eight people were killed in the Atlanta Spa Shootings. Out of all the eight victims that got killed, six of them were Asian women. According to the report, the suspect is 21-year-old and got charged with four counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault. He also is said to have a sex addiction where he admitted himself. His brutal action has stirred considerable outrage and also fear in the Asian-American community.
Despite all that, the police still cannot confirm if the attack was racially motivated. This is because the suspect has strongly denied such racial animus once he in custody even though he admitted to the crime. The investigators reveal the details given by the suspect in a news conference. They also added that it is still too early in the investigation to definitively state a motive by the suspect.
The suspect was caught with a 9mm handgun and surprisingly he did not even resist getting arrested. He also told the police that he had a ‘sexual addiction’ and he had decided to carry out the three shootings at the three different massage parlors to eliminate his own ‘temptation’ towards them. This information was told by the authorities. Other than that, the suspect also said that he had frequented massage parlors in the past and launched the attacks as a form of vengeance.
The first shooting happened at Young’s Asian Massage near Acworth, a northwest suburb of Atlanta. According to a report, four people died in the first shooting. The victims were identified as two Asian women, a white woman, and a white man while the wounded victim was a Hispanic man. It was reported around 5 p.m. The second shooting happened at 5:47 p.m. This time around, it happened at the Gold Spa in the northeast part of the city where they found the bodies of three women with gunshot wounds. Police were called to a “robbery in progress” by a woman while she was hiding from the suspect.
For the third shooting, the police have received a report of shots fired at the Aromatherapy Spa across the street while they were at the scene of the second shooting. There, they found the body of another dead woman. Six of the eight people killed in the shootings at Atlanta-area spas 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.
Sources: CNN