President Joe Biden traveled to Georgia where he met Asian-American leaders in the wake of Tuesday's attack on three Atlanta-area massage businesses. The shootings left eight dead. They are: Daoyou Feng, 44, Delaina Ashley Yaun, 33, Hyun Jung Grant, 51, Paul Andre Michels, 54, Soon Chung Park, 74, Suncha Kim, 69, Xiaojie Tan, 49, Yong Ae Yue, 63 and Elcias Hernandez Ortiz, 30 is still in hospital with his injuries.
Although this was obviously a racially motivated attack, police have not called race the motive for the attack. Even though hate crimes against people of East Asian descent have risen during the Covid-19 pandemic. Biden stated that racism has been an "ugly poison that has long haunted and plagued our nation," one that Americans must work to extinguish.
Due to such rise in hate crimes especially, towards Asian Americans since the start of the pandemic, which activists have linked to rhetoric blaming Asian people for the outbreak, there was a proposal of the Covid-19 hate crimes act. The bill would "expedite the federal government's response to the rise of hate crimes exacerbated during the pandemic, support state and local governments to improve hate crimes reporting and ensure that hate crimes information is more accessible to Asian American communities," the White House said. However, Mr. Biden added that "for all the good that laws can do, we have to change our hearts". "Hate can have no safe harbor in America. It has to stop," he said. "It's on all of us, all of us together, to make it stop.
The Georgia Sheriff's Office investigating the shootings removed its spokesman from the case on Thursday after social media posts emerged showing Captain Jay Baker promoting a T-shirt that called Covid-19 an "imported virus from CHY-NA". Mr. Baker has faced intense criticism since his comments at the first press conference after the shooting, in which he claimed the murder suspect, Robert Aaron Long, had "a really bad day".
Valeria Ramirez
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