Vice President Kamala Harris condemned the shooting in Atlanta and said she stood with the Asian American community as it reeled from the death toll in an attack on massage parlors.
“The president and I and all of us we grieve for the loss,” she said before a virtual meeting with the Irish prime minister to mark St. Patrick’s Day. “Our prayers are extended to the families of those who have been killed, and it speaks to a larger issue which is the issue of violence in our country and what we must do to never tolerate it and to always speak out against it.”
A string of shootings on Tuesday night at three Atlanta-area massage parlors left eight people dead. A 21-year-old identified as Robert Aaron Long is in custody.
Six of the victims were Asian, and seven were women.
EIGHT DEAD IN ATLANTA MASSAGE PARLOR SHOOTINGS
Although preliminary investigations suggested the suspect was not driven by racial hatred, officials said it was too early to know with certainty. They said they were considering whether the alleged gunman had a sex addiction and was motivated by trying to remove temptation.
But the deaths immediately provoked fears among local Asian Americans that the attack was directed against them following an apparent surge in assaults coinciding with the coronavirus pandemic.
Harris said: “We don’t yet know — we’re not yet clear about the motive — but I do want to say to our Asian American community that we stand with you and understand how this has frightened and shocked and outraged all people. … But knowing the increasing level of hate crime against our Asian American brothers and sisters, we also want to speak out in solidarity with them and acknowledge that none of us should ever be silent in the face of any form of hate.”
A day earlier, a group monitoring violence against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders reported that from March 2020 to February 2021, it received 3,795 reports of anti-Asian hate incidents. Stop AAPI Hate reported that verbal harassment represented 68% of hate incidents and physical assaults roughly 11%.
Authorities began releasing names of the victims on Wednesday morning.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office named four of the victims: 33-year-old Delaina Ashley Yaun, 54-year-old Paul Andre Michels, 49-year-old Xiaojie Yan, and 44-year-old Daoyou Feng.
