ACWORTH, Ga — Eight individuals have been shot to demise at three therapeutic massage parlors within the Atlanta space on Tuesday night, the authorities mentioned, including {that a} suspect was in custody.
All however one of many individuals killed have been ladies and 6 of them have been Asian, in response to regulation enforcement officers.
The gunman, recognized as Robert Aaron Lengthy, 21, of Woodstock, Ga., was captured in Crisp County in South Georgia after a manhunt, mentioned the authorities, who had earlier launched a surveillance picture of a suspect close to a Hyundai Tucson outdoors one of many therapeutic massage parlors.
The motive for the killings was unclear, although the Atlanta police initially characterised the capturing at one of many parlors within the metropolis as a theft in progress.
4 individuals died within the first capturing, at Younger’s Asian Therapeutic massage close to Acworth, a northwest suburb of Atlanta, mentioned Capt. Jay Baker of the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Workplace. That capturing, by which one individual was injured, was reported round 5 p.m.
At 5:47 p.m., the Atlanta police mentioned, officers responded to a theft at Gold Spa within the northeast a part of town, the place they discovered the our bodies of three ladies with gunshot wounds. Whereas the officers have been on the scene, the police mentioned, they obtained a report of photographs fired on the Aromatherapy Spa throughout the road, the place they discovered the physique of one other lady.
Debra and Gregory Welch, who dwell within the neighborhood, mentioned it was normally quiet and peaceable, though they referred to the stretch the place the shootings happened because the neighborhood’s “red-light district.” “It’s for positive disturbing,” Mr. Welch mentioned of the shootings, “however much more so if it’s associated to an anti-Asian issue from the Covid pandemic.”
Northwest of Atlanta, Younger’s Asian Therapeutic massage is tucked in a modest strip mall, with a magnificence salon on one facet and a boutique on the opposite. Like a lot of suburban Georgia, it’s a various place, with panaderias and Latin companies and American-style chain eating places.
On Tuesday evening, the blue lights of police automobiles forged an eerie glow as detectives labored contained in the spa.
Rita Barron, 47, the proprietor of Gabby’s Boutique subsequent door, was with a gaggle of onlookers standing close to a used automotive lot. She mentioned she had been with a buyer when she heard noises via the wall that seemed like claps — after which ladies screaming.
She referred to as 911, and shortly noticed individuals being taken out of the spa by law enforcement officials.
Close by, a wail of anguish went up from one other cluster of individuals ready for any information. Three dropped to the pavement, two of them embracing and shaking as they cried.
Richard Fausset reported from Acworth, Ga., and Neil Vigdor from Greenwich, Conn. Sean Keenan contributed reporting from Atlanta, Azi Paybarah from Albany, N.Y., and Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio from New York.