“Racially motivated violence should be called out for exactly what it is — and we must stop making excuses or rebranding it as economic anxiety or sexual addiction,” said Marilyn Strickland, a Korean-American Democrat.
The shootings come as anti-Asian hate crimes have increased by nearly 150% since 2019.
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Police say alleged shooter Robert Aaron Long said his shootings Tuesday at three massage parlors in and around Atlanta, which left eight people dead, were because he had visited the locations and saw them as “temptations” to “eliminate,” and that suggested Long may have not been motivated by anti-Asian racism.
Those police comments sparked immediate criticism: Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) said on Twitter that “having one possible motive does not negate other motives,” and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms told CNN she was taking Long’s claim about his motivation “with a grain of salt” as “it's very difficult to believe what he says.”