Massage parlor shootings being scrutinized as possible hate crime
ATLANTA — Police said Thursday that “nothing is off the table”î in the investigation of the deadly shootings at two Atlanta massage parlors, including whether the slayings were a hate crime.
Those attacks and a third one near the suburban town of Woodstock killed eight people and prompted President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to change their plans for a previously scheduled trip to Atlanta. The pair postponed a political event in favor of meeting today with Asian American community leaders.
A 21-year-old white man, Robert Aaron Long, is charged with murder in Tuesday’s slayings. Six of those killed were women of Asian descent.
“Our investigation is looking at everything, so nothing is off the table,”î Deputy Atlanta Police Chief Charles Hampton Jr. said at a news conference.
The Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office said it also was investigating whether the killings were hate crimes.
Georgia lawmakers last year passed a law that allows additional penalties to be imposed for certain offenses when motivated by a victim’s race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender or disability. A hate crime is not a standalone crime under the law, but it can be used to add time to a sentence once someone is convicted of another crime.
Investigators believe Long had previously visited two of the Atlanta massage parlors where four of the women were killed, Hampton said.
Long told police that the attacks were not racially motivated. He claimed to have a sex addiction, and authorities said he apparently lashed out at what he saw as sources of temptation.
Long’s statements spurred outrage and widespread skepticism in the Asian American community, which has increasingly been targeted for violence during the pandemic. Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Capt. Jay Baker also drew criticism for saying Long had “a really bad dayî and “this is what he did.î
Sheriff Frank Reynolds Thursday acknowledged that some of Baker’s comments stirred “much debate and angerî” and said the agency regrets any “heartache”î caused by his words.
Baker was replaced Thursday as spokesman for the investigation.
The sheriff did not address a 2020 Facebook post that appeared to have been written by Baker promoting a T-shirt with racist language about China and the coronavirus. Baker has not commented on the post, which was taken down Wednesday.
Biden and Harris had already been scheduled to travel to Atlanta to tout the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill, but the trip took on new meaning after the shootings. The visit also comes amid an intense debate over voter rights in Georgia.
Biden and Harris, the first vice president of Asian descent, will instead meet with Asian American leaders to discuss threats against the community, meet with other local leaders and visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for an update on the pandemic.
Also Thursday, Biden directed that flags be flown at half-staff through sunset Monday in honor of the dead.
Lawmakers in the House and Senate have introduced legislation that would assign a person at the Justice Department to expedite the review of hate crimes related to COVID-19 and provide additional support to state and local authorities to respond to those crimes. But it is unclear if the bill by Rep. Grace Meng, a New York Democrat, and Sen. Mazie Hirono, a Hawaii Democrat, will get a vote.
Meng urged Democratic leaders to move the legislation and said lawmakers “cannot turn a blind eyeî to people who are living in fear.
“Our community is bleeding,î” Meng said. “We are in pain. And for the last year, we’ve been screaming out for help.”î
There was some tension as a Republican on the panel, Texas Rep. Chip Roy, charged that Democrats were trying to control speech.
“When we start policing free speech, we’re doing the very thing that we’re condemning when we condemn what the Chinese Communist Party does to their country,î Roy said. î
Meng responded angrily, saying Republicans “can talk about issues with any other country you want, but you don’t have to do it by putting a bull’s-eye on the back of Asian Americans across this country, on our grandparents, on our kids.î
The shootings follow high-profile instances of race and gender-based killings in recent years by white men. In 2014, a 22-year-old who had railed against women online killed six people and wounded 14 near the University of California, Santa Barbara. The following year, eight Black church members and their pastor were shot and killed in a racist attack in South Carolina. In 2018, a Florida gunman with what police called a ìhatred towards womenî killed two and injured five at a yoga studio. The year after that a shooter targeting Latinos opened fire at an El Paso, Texas, Walmart, killing 22.
The fact the Georgia shooter targeted the businesses because he linked them to commercial sex is a nightmare scenario for those who work in erotic industries, said Kate D’Adamo, an organizer and advocate for sex worker rights. ì
Prostitution laws mean women also fear reporting harassment or violence to police, afraid of being arrested themselves or their pleas ignored, she said. Those fears are even more pronounced for women of color, those who are immigrants or those with few language skills.
Researchers who spoke to more than 100 Chinese and Korean workers at illicit massage parlors in 2019 found that while some women did say they felt deceived or coerced into jobs that involved sex work, many more chose the profession after having bad experiences in the few other types of generally low-paying jobs available to them, like restaurants and nail salons.