Video: Suspect entered spa over an hour before 911 calls
The suspect in the shootings at three Atlanta-area spas entered Young’s Asian Massage more than an hour before gunfire was reported at the business, the beginning of a rampage that left eight people dead, most of them Asian women, surveillance video obtained by the Washington Post shows.
The video shows that Robert Aaron Long first spent an hour sitting in the parking lot outside the shop. He then entered, and 1 hour and 12 minutes elapsed before he was seen leaving the establishment and getting into his car. Several minutes later, people appear in the parking lot and police arrive. The length of time that Long spent inside Young’s was previously unknown. It’s unclear what he was doing for the hour after he was seen entering the spa and before the shooting began.
During the hour and 12 minutes after Long entered the building, the video shows cars driving up and people coming and going. The video does not appear to be manipulated.
The timing of Long’s departure in the footage came four minutes ahead of the first reports of gunshots to 911, which came at 4:54 p.m., according to a 911 call log and the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office. (The time codes that appear in the upper left corner of the surveillance video are four hours off. Four hours is also the time difference between Eastern and Coordinated
Universal Time or UTC.) At the time of those reports, a separate video obtained by the Post, shot by Marcus Lyon, a 31-yearold customer of the business, shows several victims laying motionless on the ground in front of the shop.
When asked about the surveillance video, the Sheriff’s Office declined to provide details about when Long was shown to have entered Young’s and what is known about what preceded the shooting.
Authorities have so far released only limited details about Long’s movements on the day of the shooting. Some details have emerged, including from an attorney for a store in Canton, Ga., who confirmed that Long bought a 9 mm pistol there the same day.