Six Asian American women killed in Atlanta shootings

The investigation continued at one of the crime scenes last night.

UPDATED March 17, 5:30 P.M. PST to name four of the victims.

Six of the eight people shot to death in the Atlanta area were  Asian women, but police hesitate to say the killings were racially motivated.

The fatal shootings occurred at three different massage parlors Tuesday evening, one after the other. Authorities believe the suspect in custody was the same shooter at the three locations.

The three attacks happened during a year that is seeing an alarming rise in violence  directed against Asian Americans. Authorities haven't determined a motive or if the killings were racially motivated. 

The suspect in custody has been identified as Robert Aaron Long, a 21-year old white man, of Woodstock, Ga., He was captured in Crisp County, about 150 miles south of Atlanta, after authorities released a surveillance image of a suspect.

"The reported shootings of multiple Asian American women today in Atlanta is an unspeakable tragedy — for the families of the victims first and foremost, but also for the Asian American community, which has been reeling from high levels of racist attacks over the course of the past year," stated Stop AAPI Hate, a community advocaccy group that has been collecting reports of violence against AAPI. 

"This latest attack will only exacerbate the fear and pain that the Asian American community continues to endure," the statement concluded.

For the period of March 19, 2020 to Feb. 28, 2021, the group has received 3,795 reports of harassment, bullying, vandalism or assaults against AAPI, according to the most recent report from #StopAAPIHate. The reports, represent only a fraction of all the incidents of hate, says the report.

The first Georgia shooting was around 5 p.m.. at Young's Asian Massage in Acworth, northwest of Atlanta, where five people were shot. The victims were Delaina Ashley Yuan, 33, of Acworth; Paul Andre Michels, 54, of Atlanta; Xiaojie Yan, 49, of Kennesaw; and Daoyou Feng, 44. A 30-year-old Hispanic man was wounded and remains in the hospital.

About an hour later, a shooting was reported about 30 miles away at Gold Massage Spa in Atlanta where three women were found dead. While investigating that shooting, another call of shots fired across the street at the Aroma Therapy Spa, where they found another woman shot dead. The four victims were identified as Asian but their names are being withheld pending notification of relatives.

Long was arrested around 8:30 p.m. after a police chase 150 miles south of Atlanta.

Robert Aaron Long, the suspect in the Atlanta shootings.

The reaction on AAPI Twitter was busy expressing a mixture of fear, sadness and anger with the hashtags  #StopAsianHate and #AsianLivesMatter trending.

On Thursday, March 18, the House Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing on the Discrimination and Violence Against Asian Americans at 10 a.m. EST.

Last week President Biden called out the haters in his nationwide speech about the federal response to the pandemic. “It’s wrong. It’s un-American. And it must stop,” he said about the violence against Asian Americans.