Amid a recent spike in anti-Asian-American hate crimes and acts of violence, many of which have been directed at older Asian-American women or Asian women residing in the US, we now have a mass shooting in Atlanta that, from the initial reporting on the casualties appears to be targeted against Asian-Americans.
#BREAKING Robert Aaron Long, the suspected gunman in the Cherokee County massage parlor shooting has been caught following a chase in Crisp County. Also, death toll now at four in Cherokee. @wsbtv pic.twitter.com/iIBJV7HcbO
— Chris Jose (@ChrisJoseWSB) March 17, 2021
From KIRO Channel 7:
ATLANTA — At least eight people were killed Tuesday after shootings at three spas in the Atlanta area, authorities said.
Update 8:52 p.m. EDT March 18: Robert Aaron Long, 21, of Woodstock, the suspected gunman in the Cherokee County massage parlor shooting, was caught following a chase in Crisp County, WSB reported. Crisp County is located about 175 miles south of Acworth.
Officials in Cherokee County have updated the death toll to four, bringing the overall total from all three shootings to eight.
Original report: At a news conference, Atlanta police Chief Rodney Bryant confirmed that the four victims at the northeast Atlanta spas were women and appeared to be Asian.
“It appears that they were Asian,” Bryant told reporters.
Bryant told reporters that police originally responded to a robbery call at the Gold Massage Spa.
While we do not yet have more information on the other four victims, as in if they are also Asian-American or Asian, my guess is that because the shooter was targeting massage parlors, we’re likely to find out that at least some of the other victims are also Asian-American or Asian.
I want to make four important points here as the reporting on this mass shooting develops:
- The Asian-American and Asian communities in the US are not monolithic. The identifying language – Asian-American and Asian – covers a tremendous diversity in ethnicities and, as a result, obscures almost as much as it reveals.
- Whether it is because Asian-Americans and Asians residing in America are considered to be a successful ethnic group or immigrant group by Americans who are not of Asian descent or for some other reason, attacks on these communities – from hate crimes to domestic terrorism – seem to get underreported. This is, itself, not that unusual. Until everyone was carrying their own camera and video recording device in their phones, crimes against Black Americans, as well as Latinx and Hispanic Americans was also under reported by the news media.
- I fully expect that this attack, because it involved massage parlors, is going to get rolled into the breathless news media obsessions and narratives, promoted by law enforcement, that these women were victims of human trafficking and/or were sex workers. So both victims and had it coming at the same time. We saw this bullshit narrative* in the south Florida arrests a couple of years back that snared New England Patriot’s owner Bob Kraft. And we saw it again in Tampa during this year’s Super Bowl. It is important to remember that Kraft was let off the hook regarding preliminary charges, but the Asian and Asian-American women involved with the spas that were raided in the stings all got charged for sex crimes.
- I will NOT BE SURPRISED to find out that the shooter was motivated by some bizarre conspiracy theory, related to QAnon or not, about human trafficking for the sex trade and his attack was motivated by that, as well as the recent attempts by conservatives to ramp up the negative rhetoric regarding the Peoples Republic of China in general and in regards to the origins of COVID-19 in specific.
If I see any updates, I’ll add them below.
Update at 10:05 EDT
CBS News has some additional details that, I think, are going to confirm my worst assumptions regarding this being specifically targeted at Asian-Americans:
Police said it was too early in the investigation to identify potential motives.
A shooting at Young’s Asian Massage in Cherokee County left three people dead and two wounded, according to the Cherokee County Sheriff’s office. The two wounded people were taken to the hospital, where one later died.
Later, three people were shot and killed at Gold Spa on Piedmont Road in Atlanta, according to Atlanta Police Chief Rodney Bryant. While officers were responding to the scene at Gold Spa, they received another call for a shooting across the street at Aromatherapy Spa, where they found another person who had been shot and killed, Bryant said.
Bryant said all four victims from the Piedmont Road shootings were female.
Cherokee County Police identified Robert Aaron Long, 21, of Woodstock as a suspect in the Young’s Asian Massage shooting. Long was taken in to custody Tuesday night in Crisp County, Georgia, according to Cherokee County sheriff’s Office Director of Communications and Community Relations Captain Jay Baker.
Updated at 10:27 PM EDT
Apparently Trump went hard into the slur during his interview on Fox earlier this evening.
Trump even used an anti-Chinese slur during his interview this evening on Fox, just before news trickled out of a mass shooting in the Atlanta area that apparently targeted Asians and left 8 people dead pic.twitter.com/UY56F9WWxY
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 17, 2021
Open thread!
* I am not denying the reality that women, as well as some men, and children are trafficked for sex. As well as for other work. Nor am I denying the reality that a lot of the women working in these spas are, in fact, actual victims as they are being forced to do sex work to pay off the debt accumulated to get to the US. But there is a difference between the reality and the breathless, something must be done narrative that law enforcement and tough on crime politicians push and that the news media seems to have a gigantic sweet tooth for.
Also, sex work should be decriminalized. Flat stop.
Tom Levenson
Great minds….
Soprano2
This is quite a bigfoot. Also, what a fucking travesty this is.
MisterForkbeard
Oh god dammit. I came here to spread the word that Biden has said we need to change the filibuster (similar to Manchin) and we have news of yet another mass shooting.
Fuck the gun nuts.
dmsilev
Damn.
Toxic combination of racism and far-too-easy access to guns.
Edit: To quote a headline that The Onion has run far far too many times, ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.
Elizabelle
Please leave both threads up! We can multitask!
Tom Levenson
@Elizabelle: We will.
Adam L Silverman
@Tom Levenson: @Elizabelle:
via GIPHY
Adam L Silverman
I think this sums things up pretty well:
Elizabelle
At least we have a Consoler in Chief, instead of the hideous thing occupying that office before.
First 100 days. Yup, the first mass shooting.
karen marie
I look forward to learning which fast food joint the police stopped off at to buy the shooter dinner.
Roger Moore
@karen marie:
Panda Express, natch.
dc
All Asians and all women, it’s White Supremacy and the patriarchy again, best buddies.
Elizabelle
There was a family murder suicide in Arkansas some months back. Lower income white females; the shooter was, I guess, either the mother or grandmother. Five dead females. In itself, you would think that would be notable.
That one never hit the news much at all. To me, five is a lot of dead. Especially since one or two were children/teens.
karen marie
@Roger Moore: It’s a two-fer.
jonas
QAnon nutter? Maybe. Fragile, gun-obsessed white guy? My guess is he was a patron of one or more of these massage parlors, demanded a happy ending or something recently, was rebuffed, and decided to teach them a lesson in respect.
NoraLenderbee
At least they caught the MFer before he heroically offed himself. An actual neckbeard.
different-church-lady
Can hardly wait to see what’s in this guy’s Facebook feed.
VeniceRiley
it’s time for safety pin displays for everyone but white men I guess. And sex work should be decriminalized for sex workers and no one above the bottom (snerk) of the scale… Or Jeff Bezos will be a multi-trillionaire.
debbie
NPR reported this evening about a bill dealing with Asian-American hate crimes.
Mary G
When I said I wanted things to get back to normal after Covid19, I was NOT talking about mass shootings.
Redshift
Maddow devoted a fair chunk of her show to it, actually.
Adam L Silverman
@Redshift: Did she explain the linguistic origins of Asian for 20 minutes? Perhaps a long explainer on the historical development of massage?
Redshift
@Adam L Silverman: Nah, it was breaking news, so no time to prepare an in-depth lead up.
Adam L Silverman
@Redshift: I really should have used the sarcasm tags…
namekarB
@Redshift:
Also I’m betting Adam meant Chris Hayes in lieu of Chris Cuomo
Adam L Silverman
@namekarB: Nope, I checked both CNN and MSNBC before starting the post and then before I hit publish on it.
namekarB
Shalimar
@Adam L Silverman: I would have watched either of those. I understand those who complain about her lead stories. They can be achingly slow when I already know the subject. But she is entertaining, and she gives more depth than anyone else.
Redshift
I can recall a time when it seemed like we all understood that the medieval people were ignorant and superstitious for blaming the Jews, Roma or whoever for the plague and killing them. I may be too optimistic, but I did not see that one making a comeback.
Millard Filmore
Adam L Silverman
@Redshift: Given that QAnon, and before it Pizzagate, as well as a great deal of the anti-vax and anti-Pharma and anti-science conspiracy theories, which have now been partially engulfed by QAnon, are all rooted in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that are hundreds of years old, it is not surprising at all.
Adam L Silverman
@Millard Filmore: The cops. All the details are in the linked article.
Amir Khalid
@Redshift:
Who could have foreseen the election of Donald Trump, the ignorant bigots’ President?
trollhattan
Robert Craft, witness for the defense.
I am UP TO HERE with these pasty, armed-to-the-gills, neck-beard motherfuckers. There otta be a law.
Damned_at_Random
Way off topic.
The great actor, Yaphet Kotto died. Yet another reason to rewatch Alien.
Ruckus
@jonas:
My bet is that it is about the start of the pandemic, China.
For if you are going to hate people because of where they came from or what they look like then of course you have to clean them from your life if they are trying to end yours, even if only by their birth race. Maybe if we ended this bullshit about race in the first place we might just have a better place to live. But humans seem to like to be able to use the emotion of hate in the pure state, hate for hates sake.
Damned_at_Random
@trollhattan:
Nothing screams incel like a scraggly neck beard
trollhattan
Meanwhile, day ending in “Y.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56424266
Beautifulplumage
So glad the NRA is eating itself, and props to Moms Demand. Unfortunately, many of the insurrectionist treason-weasels have lots of guns & lots of ammo. Where does all that end up?
OT – so happy & relieved to get Pfizer dose 1 today when I took my older sis for her appt at a very well-run King County/ Seattle Public Health site. They offered it to me so I took it, and they seemed to be setup for that. Get the shots in the arms with little friction. About 1/4 of the stations weren’t being used, but since eligibility expands tomorrow they looked ready to handle more volume.
Martin
@Damned_at_Random: And Live and Let Die – the most entertaining/cringe of the bad Bond films.
Punchy
Just imagine the coverage if it had been a young AA male targeting 8 blonde sorority women on the Ole Miss campus. Fox would need an entire daisy-chain of commentators and 75 fainting couches as each of them strokes out after 4 mins of complete berzerkertude coveraging such an event.
Beautifulplumage
So glad the NRA is eating itself, and props to Moms Demand. Unfortunately, many of the insurrectionist treason-weasels have lots of guns & lots of ammo. Where does all that end up?
OT – so happy & relieved to get Pfizer dose 1 today when I took my older sis for her appt at a very well-run King County/ Seattle Public Health site. They offered it to me so I took it, and they seemed to be setup for that. Get the shots in the arms with little friction. About 1/4 of the stations weren’t being used, but since eligibility expands tomorrow they looked ready to handle more volume.
ETA to clarify, what happens to all the weaponry once it’s no longer needed as evidence? Sold? Melted down?
ETA sorry for managing to double comment
jonas
@Ruckus:
Does it make sense to blame one ethnic group for a pandemic that’s totally a fake liberal hoax? Anyhoo, from the looks of that guy, I’m sure it’s a rich tapestry…
Adam L Silverman
@Beautifulplumage:
Depends on the jurisdiction. Some states have laws that preempt municipal law enforcement from destroying guns seized as evidence during criminal investigations. They require that they be put up for sale through a Federal Firearms Licensed gun dealer.
prostratedragon
“One Nation Indivisible,” 1942
Ruby at the Bang-Bang Club, present day
Mike in NC
The Fat Orange Bastard can’t stop hating on non-white people.
prostratedragon
test
Amir Khalid
@Adam L Silverman:
Why? Does it bring in significant revenue to the city/state? Or is it considered sacrilege to destroy these objects of Second Amendment worship?
Martin
@Adam L Silverman:
Every gun is sacred
Every gun is great
If a gun is wasted
God gets quite irate
Adam L Silverman
@Amir Khalid: I don’t think it brings in significant revenue. These are largely Republican controlled states – legislative majorities and the governor’s mansion – who have put these laws into place. Part of their culture war virtue signaling on guns and the 2nd Amendment.
prostratedragon
https://www.moma.org/audio/playlist/304/3921 – “One Nation Indivisible,” 1942
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq-rFvHDGZ4 – Ruby at the Bang-Bang Club, present day
Is there an issue with using links in the textbox?
Martin
@Mike in NC: Uh, it’s not Trump – it’s effectively the entire GOP.
JoyceH
I can recall a time when “massage parlor” was always a euphemism for more personal services. But then real massage therapy got mainstream and now it’s hard to tell. Does anyone know the situation with these particular establishments?
Amir Khalid
@Adam L Silverman:
Auctioning off a gun that was used in an infamous crime might turn it into a prized collector’s item. Also too, and I know you agree on this, these weapons will wind up being used to make more violence and more work for the legal system. I don’t get the thinking that keeping these guns in circulation does anything to protect the Second Amendment.
Amir Khalid
@JoyceH:
Does that make a difference? I don’t think it did to Robert Aaron Long.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Martin: Didn’t you see the news that the GOP was acquired by the Trump Organization in a non-hostile takeover?
Roger Moore
@Adam L Silverman:
I guess the people’s interest in getting cheap firearms outweighs the gun manufacturers’ interest in making one more sale.
cain
@trollhattan:
halfacre? yeah, much less than that.
cain
@Beautifulplumage:
They also got no money.. that stuff is expensive. I have no idea how they have the funds to buy all that stuff.
cain
Isn’t a lot of these massage parlors run by organized crime? I think we need to make sex work legal and regulated. It’s not going away – hell it is the world’s oldest profession. But that’s the only way to protect these folks.
Of course none of that addresses racial hatred against Asians. It seems all of our demographics have been under the crosshairs of white supremacy.
patrick II
@Shalimar:
“When I already know the subject” is pretty key. When I do, I can’t wait for her to get to the point, but when I don’t she is an excellent educator.
Amir Khalid
@cain:
Has there been reporting that these were anything but legit establishments offering massage rather than sexual services? Speculating about that makes me uneasy; it comes uncomfortably close to seeking a reason to blame the victims.
patrick II
@Adam L Silverman:
So, when the murder guns are resold, does anyone keep a running tally? Those states should be so proud.
I think there was a made-for-TV movie about a gun being passed on and the harm it caused to or by the various owners.
Sister Golden Bear
@Amir Khalid: From the spas’ websites (and Google street view photos), it’s pretty clear they were offering more than a relaxing massage.
But as someone who knows people who work, or have worked, as sex workers, it damn well ought to be legal. If for no other reason, an above-board, regulated sex industry is less prone to trafficking.
cain
@Amir Khalid:
No judgement on the workers other than they are already exploited and on top of that are subject to racist attacks. This guy is both a racist and a religious nutter.
As
@Sister Golden Bear: has said – it’s pretty clear what kind of establishment it is – never mind it happened at night.
cain
@Sister Golden Bear:
Yes, exactly – it should be treated like a normal job with all the protections that comes with it.
Mallard Filmore
@prostratedragon:
Firefox and Chrome on Linux automatically turn bare text URLs into clickable links.
Amir Khalid
@cain:
It’s an expensive hobby indeed and they don’t really have the money, but that doesn’t seem to stop them.
Mallard Filmore
@cain:
Well, almost. A few years (decades?) ago the Nevada unemployment people were lambasted for suggesting work at legal sex locations for women seeking job counseling.
Beautifulplumage
@Adam L Silverman: What happens at the federal level, like when the FBI confiscates a large number at one time?
cain
@Mallard Filmore:
oh yeah, I get your point. Not exactly a noble profession is it – although some of that is how we look at sex in the first place. We’ll happy legalize drugs, and other things – but sex remains taboo.
rikyrah
Kill EIGHT PEOPLE (Allegedly)
BUT TAKEN ALIVE???
rikyrah
@Beautifulplumage:
Yeah????
cain
@Amir Khalid:
Yes, it is – and I suppose they just get into debt but just strange that they would put all their funds into that. I mean, it’s not like it will make you money or even put food on the table (unless you are a hunter, but AK-15 isn’t exactly a great gun for that)
rikyrah
@Damned_at_Random:
Terrific actor.
RIP?
Martin
@Sister Golden Bear: My observation here in CA is that massage parlors (nail salons, etc.) are the kind of ease of entry businesses that immigrants can easily tip up, but if they are obvious minorities in their community those businesses often struggle and so they expand into a broader menu of services. But when an ethnic community is large and strong, then its a lot easier for them to stick to a more traditional business model.
I suspect that Georgia doesn’t have a lot of large entrenched asian communities, considering we have asian communities here in CA that would rank in the top 10 cities in GA.
montanareddog
@Damned_at_Random:
“I’M ALONZO MOSELY!” – and Midnight Run, for his hilarious turn as the frustrated FBI agent whose identity is stolen
Rusty
Why yes, let’s legalize the economically desperate renting their holes to the economically better off. That’s a great solution. Maybe instead we could go after the purchaser of such services and provide support for the sellers, emotional, rehab (to feed addiction is a driver to sex work) and financial where people are relieved of the need to rent their holes.
prostratedragon
@Mallard Filmore: I know. What was missing was the ability to use html code in the textbox to get a link with the identifying text instead of the naked url. This is new behavior, as I’ve been using the textbox for years.
matt the somewhat reasonable
The Neckbeard Killer strikes!
Sloane Ranger
Anderson Cooper 360 was running a big segment on this when I went to bed last night and I think he was saying the shooter had been arrested so CNN hasn’t entirely ignored the story.
Did I understand what someone said upthread right and Chris Cuomo is no longer hosting his show. Is this because he’s on holiday or is it connected to his big brother’s problems?
dave319
IIRC, the International Criminal Court convicted Ruwandan and Serbian propagandists for their role in spreading genocide. Question is, for us here in the US: Why don’t WE criminalize this hate speech, or for that matter, the sheer volume of lies that continue to contribute to pandemicide, as the depraved indifference leading to murder and death that this speech demonstrably does? For this, we can say Fox and Twittler don’t get to hide behind the First Amendment anymore, right? (The excellent discussion of “proportionality” as regards rights vs other rights is in The New Republic this issue)
karen marie
@Amir Khalid: That question is only relevant if it’s a motivation of the shooter in choosing his victims.
Procopius
Excuse me, but what are you on about, “Asian language?” I studied Mandarin Chinese in the Air Force. Since then I served in Korea, Vietnam, and Thailand. In China there are at least five “linguistic groups,” who are unable to understand each other. In Singapore (where the great majority are Chinese), it is considered impolite to “speak dialect,” because of that; everyone is expected to be able to speak English. Do you want to include India in Asia? I understand they have at least 10 languages there. How about Indonesia? There is not even a common Asian culture! Customs, architecture, and food are vastly different between Japan and Ceylon. I know that’s what identity politics now requires, but I am quite sure immigrants from the Philippines do not have the same concerns as Thais, and I can assure you they do not speak similar languages. Heck, the Philippines alone has at least a dozen mutually unintelligible languages.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@Rusty: I think I understand the point you’re trying to make here, but you’re setting up a false dichotomy. The choice isn’t between legalizing prostitution and providing a safety net that makes it unnecessary as a means of survival. The illegality of sex work contributes substantially to its danger for those involved, and making it legal isn’t offered as a substitute for dealing with poverty and addiction (although your apparent assumption that those are the only reasons anyone engages in sex work is itself pretty patronizing and woefully uninformed). I’m curious, though. Do you characterize factory or farm work as poor people renting their hands or their backs?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Rusty:
1. You’ve obviously never talk to a Sex Worker.
2. “Cure sex addiction” that is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. That’s how the Catholic Church ended up a pedos paradise.
Rusty
Sex work is different from picking in a field (which I have done) or other forms of labor. The sex act is different in being personal and fundamental to our human nature. We have laws, rape, sexual assault, etc. specifically directed to the sex act. As lefties (I assume you are one since you are here), we are opposed to exploitation and coercion. We want field workers to be payed living wages, to have a safe work place. We recognize the dignity of people. As lefties we believe in consent as a fundamental part of the sex act. When economic desperation leads to someone selling their body ( and I stand by my characterization that it’s the poor renting their holes to the better off), I can’t call that consent. Legalization cements the situation into our capitalist economy, an inherently exploitative arrangement. I am also a realist (another reason I like this blog), sex work will not disappear, so we should decriminalize sex work and take other protective steps as a society. As for why sex work, it would be worth asking if sex workers would choose another profession if they could earn the same. I suspect the answer is yes. I have indirect proof of this. When the pandemic hit, there were articles on how the number of people trying to earn money on sites like only fans (a site where you try to find subscribers for porn) rose. Did such sex work-lite suddenly rise because of a whim? Of course not, it was based on economic necessity. Finally, sex workers come from the marginalized and exploited communities. The poor, addicts, immigrants, I thought we cared about those communities. The purchasers are overwhelmingly male. The traditional community of power. I don’t think there are easy answers, but I reject the blithe attitude of legalize it.
Mallard Filmore
Over at democraticunderground.com … https://democraticunderground.com/100215237819
Spa shooting suspect’s parents helped authorities catch him
By Christian Boone, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Once Cherokee County deputies received a surveillance capture of Robert Aaron Long leaving Young’s Asian Massage near Acworth Tuesday afternoon, the trail of the suspected killer grew red hot.
Long’s parents contacted the Cherokee sheriff’s office to identify their son. They also informed deputies that a tracking device could lead authorities to his vehicle, a Hyundai Tucson. Cherokee sheriff’s spokesman Jay Baker said he didn’t know why Long was being tracked, or if he was aware of it.
They do know that, without the GPS tracker, and his parents’ cooperation, Long, accused of fatally shooting eight people Tuesday at three metro Atlanta massage parlors, would not have been apprehended so quickly, Baker said. Long was captured in Crisp County, about 150 miles south of Atlanta, en route to Florida, “perhaps to carry out additional shootings,” Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said at a press conference Wednesday.
“This could’ve been significantly worse,” Bottoms said. “It’s very likely there would’ve been more victims.”
snip
https://www.ajc.com/news/crime/alleged-killer-of-spa-workers-tracked-by-gps/F4BPGOOGSFDFRA7GLPEE4AS4BE/