Authorities announced Wednesday that 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long has been charged with four counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault in Cherokee County, Georgia, and four counts of homicide in Atlanta after allegedly shooting eight people in three separate shootings at spas in the metro Atlanta area on Tuesday night.
"Six women of Asian descent are among the dead, raising suspicions of a hate crime," reports NPR, though Atlanta police said early Wednesday that investigators have not settled on a motive. Officials said Long may have frequented the locations in the past, and he reportedly told authorities he was trying to eliminate temptation for an apparent sex addiction.
President Biden said "whatever the motivation here," Asian Americans are "very concerned" by the "brutality against Asian Americans, and it's troubling." Read more at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and NPR.
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