Atlanta spa shootings were hate crimes, says prosecutor

FULTON (Georgia) • A US prosecutor has said that the man accused of killing eight people at spas in and around the city of Atlanta had targeted some of the victims because they were of Asian descent. She said she was planning to seek the death penalty against him.

The suspect, Robert Aaron Long, 22, who is white, was indicted on murder charges on Tuesday in the killings at three massage businesses in the state of Georgia that shook the US in March, amid a wave of anti-Asian hate crimes.

The killings were among the first large-scale shootings in public places in the United States in more than a year and stoked fear in many Asian Americans, who have increasingly reported being targeted in attacks since the coronavirus pandemic began.

Ms Fani Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, which includes Atlanta, said Long had targeted four women at two massage businesses there because of their race, national origin and gender.

All of the victims at the Atlanta spas were Korean Americans.

The authorities have said that Long drove to the Atlanta businesses after killing four people at another spa in a suburb in Cherokee County, also in Georgia state.

The district attorney in Cherokee County has not indicated that she plans to seek hate crime penalties against Long.

The attacks began on the evening of March 16, when four people were shot and killed at Young's Asian Massage in Cherokee County. The victims were Xiaojie Tan, 49; Daoyou Feng, 44; Paul Andre Michels, 54; and Delaina Ashley Yaun, 33. Long also shot another man, who survived.

Atlanta police then responded to a call about an attack at Gold Spa, another massage business, where they found three women who had been shot and killed.

As they were investigating the scene, they were alerted to another shooting, across the street, at Aromatherapy Spa, where they found the last victim, another woman who had been fatally shot.

Sheriff's deputies stopped Long on a highway about 241km south of Atlanta in Crisp County.

A police official later said investigators believed Long was planning to attack a business in the state of Florida that was connected to the pornography industry.

The police said after the attacks that Long had denied targeting the victims because of their race. Instead, he claimed to have struggled with a "sex addiction".

The Atlanta police have said that Long was a customer at the two Atlanta businesses that he targeted, although they have not said that he went there for sex.

Grand jurors also indicted Long on one count of domestic terrorism, saying he had intended to "intimidate the civilian population" of Georgia.

In a news conference on Tuesday, Ms Willis said she had reviewed statements that Long had given to investigators and believed that seeking the death penalty and hate crime enhancements was appropriate, but she did not lay out any new evidence about his motivations.

All the women killed in Atlanta were employees of the massage businesses there, and all were migrants from South Korea. They were identified as Soon Chung Park, 74; Suncha Kim, 69; Yong Ae Yue, 63; and Hyun Jung Grant, 51.

Under a new Georgia law, a prosecutor can ask a jury to determine if a person convicted of a crime was motivated by race or other factors, which carries an additional penalty.

Ms Willis said she believed she is the first prosecutor in the state to seek to use the law since it went into effect last July.

The intention to seek a death sentence for Long is a reversal for Ms Willis, who was elected as district attorney last November after serving in the prosecutor's office. Ms Willis said during her campaign that she could not "foresee a case" in which she would seek the death penalty, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "I believe that life without parole is an appropriate remedy," she said then, according to the newspaper.

NYTIMES