Robert Aaron Long

On March 16, 2021, a shooting spree occurred at two spas and a massage parlor in the metropolitan area of Atlanta, Georgia, United States.

Eight people were killed and a ninth was wounded.

A suspect, 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long, was taken into custody later that day.

Long pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Long told police he was motivated by a sexual addiction that was at odds with his Christianity, for which he had spent time in an evangelical treatment clinic, and that he had been targeting establishments where he had previously paid for sex.

While six of the eight people killed were women of Asian descent, Long denied that race had played any role in the killings, which was questioned by numerous organizations such as the CAPAC, CAA and NAPAWF, U.S. politicians Marilyn Strickland and Bee Nguyen, as well as by the South Korean media and the surviving victims and witnesses.

Long was charged with 19 crimes in Fulton County and 23 crimes in Cherokee County.

He pleaded guilty to the Cherokee County charges and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The shooting was one of the main incidents that gave rise to the Stop Asian Hate movement, against the backdrop of rising anti-Asian sentiment in the country.

The suspect, Robert Aaron Long, legally purchased a 9mm handgun at a firearms store in Holly Springs, hours before the shooting.

Surveillance footage showed him arriving at Young's Asian Massage, a massage parlor near Acworth, and sitting for an hour in the parking lot.

He then entered the building at about 3:38p.m.EDT (19:38 UTC) and remained inside for a period of one hour and 12 minutes.

Police did not elaborate on what Long did during this time.

Another customer who went to Young's that day said in an interview that everything was still normal inside when he arrived at around 4:40p.m.

Long left Young's at 4:50p.m. Shots were fired at some point after.

A customer who survived a gunshot wound said the gunman walked into Young's and began firing.

The customer threw himself to the floor and begged the gunman not to shoot him.

The gunman demanded him to look up at him, and when the customer complied, he was shot in the face.

The first 9-1-1 calls reporting the shooting to the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office were made at 4:54p.m. Police arrived within minutes of Long leaving.

There, they found two people fatally shot and three others wounded in different rooms down a hallway; two of the wounded later died at a hospital.

Police found a male customer, whose wife and fellow customer were fatally shot, sitting on a bed in another room, scared and confused, and detained him for four hours.

At 5:47p.m.EDT, the APD responded to reports of a robbery at Gold Massage Spa on Piedmont Road in northeast Atlanta, about 30 mi from the first shooting scene.

There, they found three women dead from gunshot wounds.

While Atlanta police were at Gold Spa, they received reports of another shooting across the street at Aromatherapy Spa, where they discovered another woman shot and killed.

Two Gold Massage Spa employees who survived the shooting reported hearing ticking sounds while in a break room, which turned out to be gunfire.

They hid in a lounge, using items to take cover, and were shot at but not injured.

According to them, the gunman did not speak or make any other sounds during the shooting, and he locked both the front and back doors of the spa at some point.

According to a report from national Korean newspaper The Chosun Ilbo, a nearby Korean restaurant told how an unidentified Gold Massage Spa employee who escaped there from the store during the shooting stated that the shooter said, "I'm going to kill all Asians," although in a later Rolling Stone interview a taxi driver who had talked to a local business manager stated it was a police officer who had told the manager this.

According to an eyewitness, the attacker shot the worker who opened the door of Aromatherapy Spa for him and fled without entering the interior.

According to the APD, they noticed the similarities between the Piedmont Road and Cherokee County shootings and subsequently dispatched officers to patrol similar businesses in the area.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation was called in to assist in the investigation.

After the first shooting, Cherokee County police released surveillance footage to the public and were contacted by Long's parents, who recognized him.

While they were being interviewed, the APD was responding to the second and third shootings in Atlanta.

His parents informed deputies that Long's Hyundai Tucson was equipped with a tracking device.

Using surveillance footage of his vehicle at both crime scenes along with the car's tracker, police were able to ascertain his location.

At around 8:30p.m., roughly 3.5 hours after the shootings, Long was spotted by police in Crisp County, about 150 mi south of Atlanta.

Georgia State Patrol officers followed him south on Interstate 75 until a location just south of Cordele, where they used a PIT maneuver to stop his vehicle and took him into custody.

Long was on his way to Florida when he was apprehended.

Long was initially arrested in connection to the Cherokee County shooting; police later identified him as a suspect in the Piedmont Road shootings as well.

Police found a 9mm handgun in his car.