Robert Aaron Long, 21, was arrested and charged with eight counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault after he fatally shot eight people, including six Asian women, at three spas throughout Atlanta. The horrific attack comes as the U.S is seeing a concerning spike in violence targeting Asian Americans.
The victims were Soon Park, 74; Delaina Yaun, 33; Xiaojie Tan, 49; Suncha Kim, 69; Yong Yue, 63; Daoyou Feng, 44; Hyun Jung Kim, 51; and Paul Andre Michels, 54.
Long claimed that his crimes were not racially motivated, but that he was attempting to eliminate his sexual “temptations” and “addictions.” He also said he had been to massage parlors in the past and saw his crimes as a form of vengeance. Regardless of Long’s motives, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta stated said his actions were hateful, unacceptable and needed to be addressed within the context of the other xenophobic crimes taking place across the country.
Georgia state representative Bee Nguyen told CNN that she believed the murders to be “a racially-motivated crime” and further expressed her belief that the U.S “has a reluctance to admit that there is very real and deep-rooted systematic racism that does result in violence.”
Stop AAI Hate, a reporting center working to record incidents of hate, violence, harassment and discrimination against Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States, recieved a total of 3,292 complaints since the the start of the coronavirus pandemic, according to their website. About 68 percent of these reported incidents were cases of verbal harassment and 11 percent were physical assault.
These numbers were reported soon after an analysis of the recent surge in anti-Asian hate since former President Donald Trump and other right-wing politicians described the COVID-19 pandemic as the “China Virus” along with other racist remarks that stoked xenophobic behaviors and comments.
NYPD databases have also shown a staggering 1,900 percent increase in anti-Asian hate crimes in New York City alone in the last year and a Pew Research Center survey reported that “three in 10 Asian Americans (31 percent) report having experienced racial slurs or racist jokes since the beginning of the pandemic.”
After Capt. Jay Baker of the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office said Long’s actions were the result of a “really bad day,” people took to social media outraged at the seemingly passive comments almost minimizing his crimes. Since the press conference on Wednesday, the Cherokee County Sheriff’s office released a statement apologizing for any “heartbreak” Baker’s comments caused and that they were taken out of context. The statement also praised him for his commitment to all members of the community regardless of race, despite a post from March 2020 promoting a racist shirt that said “Covid 19 imported virus from Chy-na.”
Many twitter users were also quick to compare the language and actions of law enforcement when handling other white male suspects like Dylan Roof and Kyle Rittenhouse, sparking conversations on the racial biases present in law enforcement
Public figures and celebrities have shown their support for the Asian-American community after Tuesday’s tragic news, including Vice President Kamala Harris. However, many other activists and advocates of racial equality have brought up President Biden’s Jan. 26 executive order to target xenophobia in the country and the ways in which it is no longer enough to dismantle the evident rise in hatred towards the Asian community.
