By Hanna Park
(ATLANTA) A prosecutor said Tuesday that she will seek hate crime charges and the death penalty against the man accused of killing eight people – six of them women of Asian descent – in shootings at three Atlanta-area massage businesses, The Associated Press reported.
A Fulton County grand jury also formally indicted the suspect, Robert Aaron Long, 22, who is white, on murder charges for the four killings at two spas in Atlanta.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said in a court filing that Long had targeted the four victims – all of whom were women of Asian descent – because of their race, national origin, sex and gender. The women killed in Atlanta were Soon Chung Park, 74; Suncha Kim, 69; Yong Ae Yue, 63; and Hyun Jung Grant, 51.
The indictment charges Long with four counts of murder, four counts of felony murder, five counts of assault with a deadly weapon, four counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony and one count of domestic terrorism, per The AP.
The domestic terrorism charge says Long committed a series of illegal acts, “which were interrelated by distinguishing characteristics, with the intent to cause serious bodily harm and to kill individuals and groups of individuals, and with the intent to intimidate the civilian population of this state and of its political subdivisions.”
Willis’ move to seek the death penalty deviates from her stance during her campaign to be district attorney last year, in which she refused to seek the death penalty.
Two employees who were on staff at the time and survived the shooting at Gold Spa previously indicated that Long had shot their co-workers in complete silence, according to NBC News.
"He didn’t say a word. I think that alone shows how premeditated and bent on a motive he was,” said Eunji Lee, one of the survivors.
Willis filed a notice indicating that she will seek hate crime penalties if Long is convicted of murder. Under Georgia’s new hate crimes law, a prosecutor can ask a jury to determine if a person convicted of an underlying crime is also guilty of a hate crime, which carries an additional penalty.