March 17, 2021

What We Know About the Atlanta-Area Massage Parlor Shootings

Eight people—including six Asian women—were killed.

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Eight people, including six Asian women, were killed late Tuesday after a gunman opened fire inside three massage parlors in the Atlanta metro area. Authorities have yet to identify a motive, but the shootings, which happened within the span of one hour of each other, immediately sparked fears of a racially motivated hate crime. 

Following a police chase, a suspect, 21-year-old Aaron Long, a white man, was arrested about three hours away from where the first shooting occurred. The gunman, officials said in a press conference Wednedsay morning, had “made indicators that he has some issues, potentially a sexual addiction” that suggest he may have previously frequented the businesses. Long was allegedly on his way to Florida “perhaps to carry out additional shootings,” Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms told reporters. 

Reports on Long’s social media presence show that he embraced guns and religion. The Daily Beast reported on one Instagram comment apparently written by Long that read, “Pizza, guns, drums, music, family, and God. This pretty much sums up my life. It’s a pretty good life.” The FBI is now assisting local investigations into the rampage.

Multiple Asian advocacy groups have condemned the killings, which come amid a surge of anti-Asian hate crimes during the pandemic. 

President Joe Biden, who denounced the recent wave of anti-Asian violence in his first primetime address last week, has been briefed on the shootings, the White House announced Wednesday morning.

This is a developing story. We’ll have more as updates come in.

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At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

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So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

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