Eight people were killed at massage parlors in Atlanta, Georgia. Officials are still unsure if the attack was racially motivated. On Wednesday, four victims were confirmed. Robert Aaron Long, the defendant, is charged with several murders and aggravated assault. Sheriff Frank Reynolds of Cherokee County claims the perpetrator was a customer who has a "sex problem."

The assault happens at a time when crimes against Asian-Americans are on the rise. Ashley Yaun, 33, Paul Andre Michels, 54, Xiaojie Tan, 49, and Daoyou Feng, 44, are four of the victims, according to Cherokee County officials. Elcias R Hernandez-Ortiz was injured.

Investigators said Mr. Long, 21, of Woodstock, Georgia, confessed to the shooting spree and denied that the assault was motivated by race. According to the Cherokee County Sheriff's Department, he has been charged with four murder charges and one aggravated assault.

Mr. Long was found with a 9mm pistol and did not resist arrest, according to Capt Jay Baker. "He has a problem, what he considers as a sex addiction, and sees these places as a temptation for him that he wanted to remove," Baker said.

Massage parlors are known to sometimes offer sex services, but authorities say there is no evidence that this was the case at the targeted locations.

"These are legitimately running companies that have escaped our notice," Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms confirms.

Law enforcement officers also confirmed that it is too early to claim a motive definitively and that the perpetrator seemed to be acting alone. When he was arrested, he was on his way to Florida.

According to Capt. Baker of the sheriff's office, the first shooting occurred at Young's Asian Massage in Acworth, Cherokee County, about 17:00 on Tuesday. Two people died at the scene, three others were taken to the hospital, where two more died. Later, he reported that the victims were two Asian women, a white woman, and a white male, as well as a Hispanic man.

Police were alerted of a robbery in progress at Gold Spa in north-east Atlanta less than an hour later. A woman informed that she's running from the attacker in the 911 call.

Officers discovered three females dead inside the location from apparent gunshot wounds. Officers were called to another spa across the street, Aromatherapy Spa, where they discovered another woman shot to death.

A woman informs the operator on a second 911 call that she received a call from a friend who said a man had entered the spa and fired a shot. After analyzing the CCTV video, investigators released photographs of a suspect outside one of the spas. After a manhunt, Robert Aaron Long was arrested in Crisp County.

Ashley Yaun and her husband had gone to Young's Asian Massage. Her husband survived the attack. Mr. Hernandez-Ortiz, the only survivor of the attacks, is in intensive care after being shot in the forehead, lungs, and stomach, according to a GoFundMe page.

Around 100 people marched through Chinatown and lit candles in memory of the eight people killed in Atlanta, heartbroken, scared, enraged, and fed up.

Many in the community claim the shooting is just another needless assault on Asians and Asian-Americans during the pandemic, which has "been reeling from high levels of racist attacks."

"A motive has yet to be determined, but a crime against any group is a crime against us all," says Mayor Bottoms.

Mr. Biden said on Twitter, “The Asian-American community is in a lot of pain right now. They must come to an end."

"Today's horrific killings in Atlanta reaffirm the need to step up and defend ALL of America's marginalized minorities from racism," said Ben Crump, a leading civil rights lawyer.