Eight people, six of whom were Asian women, were killed in shootings at three different spas in the U.S. state of Georgia on Tuesday, with a 21-year-old man in custody on suspicion of staging all three attacks, police said.
Four of the victims were killed at Young's Asian Massage near Acworth, a suburb of Georgia's capital city Atlanta, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
Captain Jay Baker of the Cherokee County sheriff's office told the paper the victims were two Asian women, a white woman and a white man, while a Hispanic man was wounded.
The Atlanta police department separately confirmed four women were found dead at two business establishments in northeast Atlanta, identified as the Gold Massage Spa and Aroma Therapy spa.
Police told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that all four Atlanta victims were Asian women.
Yonhap News Agency from South Korea later reported the country's foreign ministry had confirmed that four of the victims were of Korean descent.
City of Atlanta police officers are seen outside of Gold Spa after deadly shootings at a massage parlor and two day spas in the Atlanta area, in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., March 16, 2021. /Reuters
The suspect in all three shootings, identified as 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long, was taken into custody in Crisp County, the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office.
"It is extremely likely our suspect is the same as Cherokee County's, who is in custody," Atlanta police spokesman Sergeant John Chafee told AFP. "We are working closely with them to confirm with certainty our cases are related."
"Right now there's no immediate threat to the public at large, but we are having conversations with different law enforcement agencies," Atlanta Police Chief Rodney Bryant said.
Motive behind the shootings is not yet clear for now.
But the shootings came with many Asian-Americans already on edge following a recent spike in hate crimes against the community, and triggered immediate fears that Asian-run businesses may have been deliberately targeted.
Recently, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, whose wife is Korean American, told AP that his family had felt the effects of discrimination over the past year amid a wave of racism against Asian Americans.
The Republican governor was reported to call the attacks on Asian Americans "outrageous" and "unacceptable".
(With input from Xinhua, AFP)