Asian Community Calls Out Cops’ ‘Sad Excuse’ for Atlanta Massacre
By Blake Montgomery Reporter/Editor
In the wake of Tuesday’s brutal killing spree against Asian women, activists say the bloodshed should serve as a wake-up call to how Asian American women are routinely dehumanized—but police are too busy humanizing the accused gunman to recognize the hate crime they say he committed.
“The first thing I thought about when the police said it’s not a racially motivated crime because he said so is that they don’t understand how racism works in this country,” said Sung Yeon Choimorrow, executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum.
“We can’t just say we’re not talking about the racism piece of it. We can’t separate that from the gender aspect of what happened,” she told The Daily Beast.
Of the eight victims killed in the string of attacks on Atlanta area massage parlors, six were Asian women, four of whom were of Korean descent.
But neither police nor the Fulton County district attorney have designated the attacks as racist hate crimes in their ongoing investigations, nor have authorities said if they believe the shooter targeted Asian women on purpose. The suspect “claims the shootings were not racially motivated,” Cherokee County sheriff’s office spokesman Jay Baker said Wednesday morning. Baker himself had promoted shirts on Facebook that called the coronavirus “imported from Chy-na.”
Four of the victims, all shot at Young’s Asian Massage, have been identified: Delaina Ashley Yaun, 33; Xiaojie Tan, 49; Daoyou Feng, 44; and Paul Andre Michels, 54. Yaun had been on a date with her husband of less than a year. The other four victims remain unidentified.
Robert Aaron Long, 21, was arrested the night of the shootings and confessed Wednesday. He has been charged with murder and attempted murder. Police say that when officers apprehended him, he said he was en route to a pornography business in Florida where “very likely there would have been more victims.” Police said Long had visited the massage parlors before.
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Posted By: Dea. Ron Gray Sr.
Tuesday, March 23rd 2021 at 8:55PM
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