LeBron James sent “condolences” to the “entire Asian community” on Wednesday after a string of shootings at Atlanta-area massage parlors left eight people, including six people of Asian descent, dead.
“My condolences goes out to the families of all the victims and the entire Asian community tonight on what transpired in Atlanta at the Aromatherapy Spa,” the Laker forward wrote on Twitter.
James then blasted the shooting suspect as a “Coward a** young man!! Just senseless and tragic!!
According to the New York Post:
The violence began Tuesday evening when five people were shot at Youngs Asian Massage Parlor in Acworth, which is about 30 miles north of Atlanta, authorities said.
Four of the victims of that shooting died, according to the sheriff’s office.
About an hour later, three women were found dead from apparent gunshot wounds at Gold Spa near Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborhood.
While officers were there, they received another call across the street at Aromatherapy Spa and found another woman shot dead, police said.
Much of the mainstream media quickly developed the racial angle of the shooting, given that the shooting suspect, 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long, was white and the victims, Asian.
However, based on Long’s confession, authorities in Georgia established that Long targeted the massage parlors because he saw them as facilitators of his sexual addiction, not because they were staffed by Asians. In fact, two of the eight people killed by Long were white, and another Hispanic man was injured.
Long was arrested without incident after a brief pursuit by Georgia State Patrol troopers. He is currently being detained in the Crisp County Detention Facility.