Multiple dead, 21-year-old suspect in custody after Atlanta massage parlour shooting

Authorities say a 21-year-old man admitted to killing eight people in a mass shooting and blamed massage parlours for providing an outlet for his sex addiction.

Eight people are dead and a 21-year-old male suspect has been taken into custody after shootings at three different spas in Atlanta, Georgia.

Authorities suspect that Robert Aaron Long from Woodstock, Georgia, entered the three separate parlours and began shooting those inside.

Long allegedly admitted to the killings and blamed his “addiction to sex” as the motive, authorities said.

“Long told investigators that he blames the massage parlours for providing an outlet for his addiction to sex,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement on Wednesday, according to ABC News US.

“Long told investigators the crimes were not racially motivated.”

At about 5pm on Tuesday, local time, five people were shot at Young’s Asian Massage Parlour in Acworth, about 50 kilometres north of Atlanta. Two of the victims were pronounced dead at the scene, while the other three were transported a hospital where another two died.

Law enforcement personnel are seen outside a massage parlour where a person was shot and killed in Atlanta, Georgia. Picture: Elijah Nouvelage/AFP

Eight people were killed in shootings at three different spas. Picture: Elijah Nouvelage/AFP

About 50 minutes later, Atlanta police officers responded to a call of a robbery in progress at Gold Spa in the city’s northeast, where they found three women dead from apparent gunshot wounds.

While at the scene, police said they received a report of shots fired at the Aromatherapy Spa across the street, where they found the body of another woman.

All but one of the eight people killed were women, while six of them were Asian, law enforcement officials said.

Robert Aaron Long has been taken into custody over shootings at three separate massage parlours in Atlanta, Georgia. Picture: Cherokee Sheriff’s Office/AFP

Surveillance footage showed Long near the first business just minutes before the shooting. Picture: Cherokee Sheriff’s Office/AFP

Long was captured in Crisp County, about 240 kilometres south of Atlanta, after a manhunt, authorities said. A surveillance image of the suspect near a Hyundai Tucson outside one of the massage parlours, just minutes before the shooting, had been released by authorities earlier.

Debra and Gregory Welch, who live in a neighbourhood near one of the parlours, told The New York Timesthe news was “for sure disturbing, but even more so if it’s related to an anti-Asian factor from the COVID pandemic”.

Former US president Barack Obama said on Wednesday that violence against people of Asian descent “must end”.

“Even as we’ve battled the pandemic, we’ve continued to neglect the longer-lasting epidemic of gun violence in America,” he added.

A New York Police Department (NYPD) spokesperson told Sky News they would deploy counterterroism officers to Asian communities throughout the city out of an abundance of caution following the Atlanta shootings.

A line of police cars block the area of a shooting at a spa in Atlanta. Picture: Cherokee Sheriff’s Office/AFP

In a statement, the Atlanta police said it was too early to confirm whether the shooting in Atlanta and Cherokee County were linked but that they were “looking into that possibility”.

“At this time, investigators are gathering information from both scenes to determine exactly what occurred and attempting to obtain confirmed information regarding the suspect or suspects,” the department said.