News of Tuesday’s Atlanta shooting spree has raised questions about the killer’s motivations, with all signs pointing to racism. However, Police have indicated that he was motivated by shame about his sex addiction.
Robert Aaron Long, 21, has taken responsibility for the killings after he was arrested and taken into custody, police report.
Long murdered eight people at three different massage parlours across Atlanta on Tuesday. Six of his victims were Asian women, yet he does not claim racism as the motivation for the killing spree.
“He does claim that it was not racially-motivated,” said Captain Jay Baker of the Cherokee Sheriff’s Office. “He apparently has an issue, what he considers a sex addiction, and sees these locations as something that allows him to go to these places. It’s a temptation for him that he wanted to eliminate.”
Cherokee County Sheriff Frank Reynolds added that it is a possibility that Long was “lashing out” through the killings. That’s putting it lightly.
He could have killed even more people, had the authorities not intervened when they did. Apparently, Long had intentions of travelling to Florida to attack “some type of porn industry,” said police. Long may very have a sex addiction but some people aren’t buying the story that his shame fuelled the attacks.
Here’s my problem with the white “targets of opportunity” narrative.
Atlanta (no offense) is AWASH IN SEX WORK. If you just want to lash out against sex workers, you don’t VIA OPPORTUNTIY end up shooting six Asian women.This guy went after ASIAN women.
— Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) March 17, 2021
His reason for the killing spree doesn’t stop the fact that this shooting contributes to the “nearly 3800 anti-Asian hate incidents” that “were reported over the past year, with the vast majority against women”, according to a report released by Stop Asian American and Pacific Islander Hate.
“Whatever the motivation was for this guy, we know that the majority of the victims were Asian,” Keisha Lance Bottoms, Mayor of Atlanta, said.
i don’t think it’s a coincidence that Trump spent the better part of a year using a virus as a slur against Chinese people while hate crimes against Asian Americans spiked by 150 percent
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 17, 2021
President Biden weighed in on the discussion by saying he was aware that “Asian-Americans are very concerned” at the moment. “Because as you know I have been speaking about the brutality against Asian-Americans for the last couple months, and I think it’s very, very troubling,” he continued. “But I am making no connection at this moment to the motivation of the killer.”
Whether or not sex-work was even taking place at these massage parlours is undetermined. “These are legally operating businesses that have not been on our radar,” Mayor Bottoms said, who added that in any case, Atlanta as a city would not engage in “victim shaming, victim blaming.”
Rest In Peace,
– Delaina Ashley Yuan, 33, of Acworth
– Paul Andre Michels, 54, Atlanta
– Xiaojie Yan, 49, Kennesaw
– Daoyou Feng, 444 of the Atlanta shooting victims in Cherokee County were confirmed to be Korean, Korean-American. We mourn with the diaspora. #StopAsianHate
— Jollene 🍞🌹 (@jollenelevid) March 17, 2021
