Law enforcement officials, including the director of the FBI, said the shooting in Atlanta in which eight people were killed was apparently not racially motivated, but Georgian Senator Raphael Warnock said on Sunday: “We all know hate when we see it. ”
Six women of Asian descent, another woman and a man were killed Tuesday in a shooting at spas in the Atlanta area.
Robert Aaron Long, a 21-year-old white man, has been charged with the murders. He told police his actions were not racially motivated and claimed he had sex addiction.
FBI Director Christopher Wray told NPR on Thursday, “While the motive is still being investigated, it does not appear that the motive was racially motivated.”
But such conclusions are rejected by protesters who see a connection with increasing attacks on Asian Americans in light of the coronavirus pandemic, which originated in China, and race-driven rhetoric from former President Donald Trump and others.
Warnock, a Democrat, was elected the first African-American from Georgia to the U.S. Senate in January. On Saturday, he and his Democratic senator Jon Ossoff spoke to protesters near the state capital in Atlanta.
“I just wanted to come and say to my Asian sisters and brothers, ‘We see you, and, more importantly, we’ll stand with you,'” Warnock cheered.
On Sunday, he told NBC’s Meet the Press: ‘I think it’s important that we center the humanity of the victims. I hear a lot about the shooter, but these precious lives that have been lost are attached to families. They are connected to people they love. And therefore we must keep this in mind.
‘Law enforcement will go through the work they have to do, but we all know hate when we see it. And it is tragic that we have been visited again with this kind of violence. ”
Warnock also cited a hate crime law in Georgia amid outrage over the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a young African-American man, and which prosecutors may decide to use against Young.
“I have long campaigned here in the state of Georgia for hate crime laws,” Warnock said. ‘It took way too long to get one of the books here. But fortunately we do have the law on the books. ”
Calling for a “reasonable gun reform,” Warnock also linked official responses to the Atlanta shooting to efforts by Republicans to restrict votes among minority groups.
“This shooter was able to kill all these people the same day he purchased a firearm,” Warnock said. ‘But what does our legislature do now? They are working under the golden dome here in Georgia to prevent people from voting the same day they register.
“I think it indicates a distortion in values. When you can buy a gun on the same day and create so much carnage and violence, but if you want to exercise your voting right as a US citizen, the same legislature that needs to focus on it is building barriers to that constitutional right. . ”
Young bought a 9mm pistol from Big Woods Goods. Matt Kilgo, a lawyer for the store, told the Associated Press that he complies with federal background checks and works with police without any indication that anything is wrong.
Democrats and campaigners for the gun law reform said a mandatory waiting period could stop Young from acting on impulse.
“It’s really fast,” Robyn Thomas, executive director of the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, told the AP. ‘You step in, fill out the paperwork, have your background checked and walk out with a gun. If you are in a crisis, a personal crisis, you can do a lot of damage very quickly. ‘
According to the Giffords Center, studies indicate that the waiting periods of purchases can reduce firearm murders by up to 11% and murders by about 17%.
David Wilkerson, the minority whip in the Georgia State House, said the Democrats plan to introduce legislation that requires a five-day period between buying a gun and obtaining it.