Atlanta capturing of Asian girls was racially motivated, US senator says

US Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth on Sunday expressed doubts about FBI Director Chris Wray’s preliminary evaluation that the deadly capturing of six Asian girls in Atlanta-area spas might not represent a hate crime, saying it “looks racially motivated.”
“From where I sit, I want to see a deeper investigation into whether or not these shootings and other similar crimes are racially motivated,” Duckworth, who’s considered one of solely two Asian-Americans at the moment serving within the US Senate, informed CBS “Face the Nation.”
“It looks racially motivated to me,” she mentioned, including the caveat that she is just not a police officer or personally investigating the crimes.
Police in Atlanta are nonetheless investigating the motive in reference to the deadly capturing of eight folks, six of whom have been Asian girls, on Tuesday.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is helping with the investigation.
In an interview with NPR final week, Wray mentioned that it “does not appear” that race factored into the mass capturing.
Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock, talking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” additionally questioned that evaluation, suggesting he believes race performed a task.
“We all know hate when we see it,” he mentioned. “It is tragic that we’ve been visited by this kind of violence yet again.”
The shootings have stoked fears amongst these within the Asian-American Pacific Islander neighborhood, which has reported a spike in hate crimes since March 2020 when then-President Donald Trump started referring to COVID-19 because the “China virus.”
Suspected gunman Robert Aaron Long, a 21-year-old Atlanta-area resident who’s white, informed police that sexual frustration led him to commit the violence.
Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office Captain Jay Baker, who informed the media in a press convention {that a} sexual dependancy might have fueled the crime and mentioned Long had had “a really bad day,” has since come below criticism from political leaders and civil rights advocates for making insensitive feedback.
They famous such remarks solely gasoline stigmas about race, gender and intercourse work.
The sheriff’s workplace later acknowledged the remarks had sparked anger, however mentioned Baker by no means meant to offend anybody.
Baker is now not serving as a spokesman for the case. The incidence of hate crimes towards Asian-Americans rose by 149% in 2020 in 16 main cities in contrast with 2019, based on the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism.
Duckworth is amongst a rising variety of Asian-American lawmakers who’ve urged legislation enforcement to extra rigorously look at the escalating violence.
“It looks to me that he knew he was going to places where disproportionately the people he shot up would be Asians, and female, and I think the investigators need to really look at these facts,” Representative Ted Lieu, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, informed CNN final week, referring to Long.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris visited Atlanta on Friday to supply help to Asian-Americans and meet with leaders of the neighborhood.
Biden on Sunday additionally highlighted the necessity to stop gender-based violence and hold girls secure.
“In the past few weeks, we’ve seen too many examples of horrific and brutal assaults on women, including the tragic murders in Georgia…It hurts all of us, and we all must do more to create societies where women are able to go about their lives free from violence,” he mentioned in an announcement.
The Justice Department has beforehand mentioned it’ll step up investigations into hate crimes towards Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders.

Duckworth mentioned on Sunday she has written a letter to Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland asking them to take a deeper take a look at whether or not hate crimes are going under-reported.

A Justice Department spokesman confirmed receiving the letter and mentioned it was below overview.