ASIAN FURY OVER SPA KILLINGS
Suspect in three shootings in US state of Georgia denies racist motive
SADNESS, anger and fear were coursing on Wednesday through Stephanie Cho, a day after a gunman’s attack on spas here killed eight people, most of whom were Asian women.
Police had said suspect Robert Aaron Long, a 21-year-old white man, had so far denied a racist motive for the three shootings in the southern United States state of Georgia.
But Cho, the executive director of advocacy group Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta, disagreed. “White supremacy is literally killing us,” she said amid a spike in violence targeting Asian-Americans during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Violence against Asian communities has been under the radar for many years,” she said, adding that despite her pain over the shootings, she also felt “resilience”.
Bouquets of flowers were laid
on Wednesday in front of the doors of two of the targeted spas, located across the street from each other in northeast Atlanta, where four of the victims were killed and one man wounded.
At Aromatherapy Spa, where one woman was killed, the “Open” and “Welcome” signs were still lit.
And at Gold Spa, in a brick building across the street where
three women were killed, a scrolling marquee still advertised jacuzzi and sauna services, available seven days a week.
It was at another spa, Young’s Asian Massage, in a suburb here, that four other people were killed and two wounded in a shooting only hours earlier.
Police said suspect Long told them he had a sex addiction and wanted to “eliminate” a “temptation”,
but denied that the attacks were racist.
The number of attacks and hate crimes against Asian Americans had exploded since the beginning of the pandemic, according to anti-extremism groups.
Activists blamed former president Donald Trump for that increase as he repeatedly referred to the coronavirus as the “China virus”.