Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms expressed outrage following a shooting spree at three Asian massage parlors that left 8 people dead, including six Asian women, and 1 wounded on Tuesday.
“A motive is still not clear, but a crime against any community is a crime against us all,” she said in a statement obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I have remained in close contact with the White House and APD as they work with federal, state and local partners to investigate the suspect who is responsible for this senseless violence in our city.”
She also thanked law enforcement for capturing the suspect swiftly.
Police say Woodstock resident Robert Aaron Long, 21, went on a shooting rampage beginning at 4:45 p.m. Tuesday in Acworth, northwest of Atlanta, where he shot five people, killing four at Young’s Asian Massage Parlor.
He then drove 30 minutes to Atlanta, where he killed four people at two massage parlors on busy Piedmont Road near the intersection with Cheshire Bridge Road.
The deceased victims are six Asian women, a white woman and a white man. A Hispanic man survived and is being treated at a hospital.
Long was captured about 3 hours later in Crisp County, Georgia, when a Georgia State Trooper spotted his SUV and performed a PIT maneuver, causing his vehicle to spin out on I-75, about 150 miles south of Atlanta.
He was taken into custody without incident and charged with multiple counts of murder.
