TheQuartering [3/17/2021]
Gun debate rages mere minutes after the spa shooter emerges.
A man suspected of killing eight people at three Atlanta-area spas was headed to Florida “perhaps to carry out additional shootings” when he was arrested Tuesday night, Atlanta’s mayor said Wednesday, citing investigators.
His family had helped police search for him, authorities said, perhaps averting further harm that the mayor said “could have been significantly worse.”
“It’s very likely there would have been more victims,” Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said in a news conference at Atlanta police headquarters. And preliminary information indicates that the killings — of six Asian people and two White people — may not have been racially motivated, but instead could relate to the suspect’s claim of a potential sex addiction, Cherokee County Sheriff Frank Reynolds said at the joint news conference.
Still, it was too early to know a motive, Atlanta Police Chief Rodney Bryant said. “There’s still a lot more work to be done. … We’re just not there as of yet,” Bryant said.