Police officers, including the FBI director, said the shootings in Atlanta, in which eight people were killed, do not appear to be racially motivated, but Georgia Sen. 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 on 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 that his actions were not racially motivated and claimed to be addicted to sex.
Speaking to NPR on Thursday, FBI Director Christopher Wray said: “Although the motive is still under investigation at the moment, it does not appear that the motive was racially motivated.”
But such conclusions are rejected by protesters who see a connection with the growing attacks on Asian Americans in light of the coronavirus pandemic, which originated in China, and the racially charged rhetoric of former President Donald Trump and others.
Warnock, a Democrat, took office in January as the first African American elected by Georgia to the United States Senate. On Saturday, he and fellow Democratic senator Jon Ossoff spoke to protesters near the state capital in Atlanta.
“I just wanted to come by to say to my Asian sisters and brothers, ‘We will see you and, more importantly, we will be with you,'” said Warnock, to applause.
On Sunday, he told NBC’s Meet the Press: “I think it’s important that we focus on the humanity of the victims. I’m hearing a lot about the sniper, but those precious lives that were lost are linked to families. They are connected to people who love them. And then, we need to keep that in mind.
“The police will do the job they need to do, but we all recognize hate when we see it. And it is tragic that we have been visited with this type of violence again ”.
Warnock also cited a Georgia hate crime law passed amid outrage over the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a young African American, and that prosecutors may decide to use against Young.
“I have long advocated for hate crime laws here in the state of Georgia,” said Warnock. “It took a long time to put one in the books here. But, fortunately, we have that law in place now. “
Calling for a “reasonable gun reform”, Warnock also linked official responses to the Atlanta shootings to Republican efforts to restrict voting among minority groups.
“This sniper was able to kill all these people the same day he bought a firearm,” said Warnock. “But now, what is our legislature doing? They are busy under the golden dome here in Georgia, trying to prevent people from voting the same day they register.
“I think this suggests a distortion of values. When you can buy a gun and create so much carnage and violence on the same day, but if you want to exercise your right to vote as an American citizen, the same legislature that should focus on that is busy raising barriers to that constitutional right. “
Young bought a 9 mm gun at Big Woods Goods. Matt Kilgo, a lawyer for the store, told the Associated Press that she complies with federal background checks and is cooperating with the police, “with no indication that anything is inappropriate.”
Democrats and gun law reform activists said a mandatory waiting period may have prevented Young from acting on impulse.
“It’s very fast,” Robyn Thomas, executive director of the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Weapon Violence, told the AP. “You come in, fill out the paperwork, do a background check and leave with a gun. If you are in a state of crisis, personal crisis, you can do a lot of damage quickly. “
According to the Giffords Center, studies suggest that waiting periods for purchases can reduce firearm suicides by up to 11% and homicides by around 17%.
David Wilkerson, the minority leader in Georgia’s state chamber, said Democrats plan to introduce legislation that would require a five-day period between the purchase of a gun and its receipt.