a man's been arrested after eight people
were shot dead in the u.s city of
atlanta
six of them are understood to have been
asian women
the shootings happened at two spas and a
massage parlor in the city and police
are trying to determine
if all those killings are connected as
mark lobel reports
authorities in cherokee county were
called to young's asian massage
there they found five people with
gunshot wounds
two were pronounced dead at the scene
the other three were transported
to hospital where two died the deceased
were two women of asian descent a white
woman and a white man
according to the local sheriff's
department the surviving victim
is a hispanic man his niece spoke to
reporters
and how are they how is his wife feeling
um she's completely devastated
she's um telling all the family to pray
for
him because we know we know he will be
okay
but we just around an
hour later police in atlanta responded
to a reported robbery
at the gold massage beauty spa on
piedmont road
and found three people dead while there
police received another call of shots
fired directly across the street
at the aroma therapy spa where they
found one person dead
according to atlanta's police chief the
four victims there
were female and asian we just heard
numerous gunshots coming from across the
street
they weren't letting us out so from what
we hear there's like five girls shot um
the valet is saying that
they had a whole bunch of um no offense
but a whole bunch of asian girls kind of
standing outside and lying beautiful
women and i'm just like
what exactly is going on here this
suspect was taken
into custody following a police chase
around
three and a half hours after the
killings the authorities are working on
the assumption
the three shootings are connected the
suspect
was identified as robert aaron long 21
years old lives unincorporated cherokee
county
he is currently in custody in crisp
county we've been communicating with
them
my understanding they did a pit maneuver
on him and took him into custody
as far as i know without incident in
response to the shootings in atlanta
police patrols have been increased
around similar businesses
the fbi says it's assisting as
authorities seek to ascertain the motive
behind the shootings mark globel
bbc news