8 (so far) Dead in a Massage Parlor Shooting Spree in the ATL area.

[ponyo]

Victims and ages:

Delaina Ashley Yaun, 33 (Customer)
Paul Michels, 54, ( doing some carpentry)


Staff:

• Soon C . Park, 74
• Hyun J. Grant (maiden name Kim), 51
• Suncha Kim, 69
• Yong A. Yue, 63
• Daoyou Feng, 44
• Xiaojie Tan, 49

These were the temptations he had to stop?? Given the ages I would be inclined to think this was more of a place to get actual massages.

No, those places are brothels. That street on Piedmont road is like the Red Light District. There are strip clubs and massage parlors all down that road. No legit massage parlors are open 24/7 and have the customers park in the back of the buildings. I'm familiar with Gold Spa because I took my brother-in-law there so he could get service. I know people who hit that place after night out at strip clubs and hostess bars. It's popular place to take business clients after wining and dining them.

There's GoFundMe page setup by one the kid who's mom was killed. 15 hours and over $1 million raised so far.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/in-memory-of-hyunjungkim-to-support-my-brother-i

 

[Muse]

Yeah, this does not surprise me. This motive has always seemed plausible to me.

Years ago, I had a good friend who was obsessed with sex and porn. One time he bought a VCR and about 5 porno tapes, jerked off like 10 times over a weekend, then threw the VCR and tapes he spent hundreds of dollars on into a dumpster, because he said it made him feel "dirty." He had binged, then purged/cleansed himself. Rather like a bulimic - the metaphor is apt. He repeated this sort of behavior many times.

He wasn't religious then, but became "born again" a couple years later, which in hindsight doesn't surprise me. Today he's the most fanatically religious person I know. The relationship between sex, religion and guilt/shame can produce very intense emotions and very extreme behaviors.

This act of killing was symbolically like my friend throwing out the tapes and VCR, except unfortunately he threw out people instead of things.

TBH I'm not sure I know a single person I'd say is religious in the sense that they believe there's a deity. Not one. Not one who discusses their religious beliefs, if they have any. This includes my family, who attend religious services but give them no lip service, just do it to as part of the fabric that binds the family together. My mother included, however late in life she forgot that she didn't adhere to religious edicts and claimed she had. But we knew better. She also claimed it doesn't snow in California. Couldn't argue with that woman.

 

[Muse]

And on that same theme, the shooter's church, which is getting criticized, issued a lengthy statement condemning the killings. It does say the victims are not to blame, which is good, but then adds: "He alone is responsible for his evil actions and desires."

See, they just had to add the word "desires" there. Maybe if churches weren't teaching people that natural, biologically ingrained urges were evil, things like this would be less likely to happen.

A religious man with secret shame: Here’s what we know about the Atlanta shooting suspect

Robert Aaron Long's arrest stunned his church, where he was part of the student ministry.

www.nbcnews.com

Yup, they just dumped on him for having forbidden desires. Fucking shitheads.

"He who desires and acts not breeds pestilence." - William Blake

"Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires." - William Blake

 

[CZroe]

No, those places are brothels. That street on Piedmont road is like the Red Light District. There are strip clubs and massage parlors all down that road. No legit massage parlors are open 24/7 and have the customers park in the back of the buildings. I'm familiar with Gold Spa because I took my brother-in-law there so he could get service. I know people who hit that place after night out at strip clubs and hostess bars. It's popular place to take business clients after wining and dining them.

There's GoFundMe page setup by one the kid who's mom was killed. 15 hours and over $1 million raised so far.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/in-memory-of-hyunjungkim-to-support-my-brother-i

Indeed. There were only two witnesses and the one the local news interviewed was from a nearby strip club:

I wonder if it’s the same area my stripper niece had me take her to a few times when she was passing through and needed cash. Yeah, there was some ghetto club who let her dance without a license a few times.

 

[Fenixgoon]

I wonder if it’s the same area my stripper niece had me take her to a few times when she was passing through and needed cash. Yeah, there was some ghetto club who let her dance without a license a few times.

License as in driver's license? Cause if there's a stripper license..news to me, lol

 

[CZroe]

License as in driver's license? Cause if there's a stripper license..news to me, lol

They have to register as a self-employed entertainer and pay an annual fee. At least that was how it worked in San Diego and they made it clear that she was supposed to do something similar here and the clubs turned a blind eye to it for a few days. Guess they were hoping the city wouldn’t do a raid and card everyone like they did to her a few times in San Diego.

 

[ch33zw1z]

They have to register as a self-employed entertainer and pay an annual fee. At least that was how it worked in San Diego and they made it clear that she was supposed to do something similar here and the clubs turned a blind eye to it for a few days. Guess they were hoping the city wouldn’t do a raid and card everyone like they did to her a few times in San Diego.

They must get some kind of entertainer ID?

 

[VRAMdemon]

The Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office has released the names of the four victims killed at Gold Spa and Aromatherapy Spa: Soon Chung Park, 74; Suncha Kim, 69; Yong Ae Yue, 63; Hyun Jung Grant, 51. Wtf! .. Middle aged and elderly Asian women.? More power to ya, I guess ... if you are still managing to do sex work at 70, but it isn’t known for being a career you keep into your 50s, I'm assuming. Whatever floats you boat

Whether or not the murder victims were sex workers, the murderer’s perception that they were is part of why he murdered them and why they died. He killed a bunch of innocent human beings because he believed they were sex workers, and that his extreme horniness was somehow their fault. It’s not terribly important whether they actually were sex workers. Part of what shaped this miserable excuse for a human being is his peers and political party’s demonizing of Asian people, and his conservative church’s demonizing of sex. Both of them need to reflect on how they’re helping to build a hateful and fearful culture for these young white men to grow up in.

Also on the other side of the coin in "speculation" mode, what’s the actual evidence that there were ever any “happy ending massages” at these locations? The police think maybe there were? If you cut out the sex workers and conclude he shot the massage parlors up because they didn’t live up to his racist stereotypes, and he was pissed after paying for an extra deluxe hour-long massage, and then when they didn’t know WTF he was talking about with “the happy ending” he went and got his gun because that’s how insecure losers respond when ashamed/embarrassed.

 

[Heartbreaker]

The Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office has released the names of the four victims killed at Gold Spa and Aromatherapy Spa: Soon Chung Park, 74; Suncha Kim, 69; Yong Ae Yue, 63; Hyun Jung Grant, 51. Wtf! .. Middle aged and elderly Asian women.? More power to ya, I guess ... if you are still managing to do sex work at 70, but it isn’t known for being a career you keep into your 50s, I'm assuming. Whatever floats you boat

Whether or not the murder victims were sex workers, the murderer’s perception that they were is part of why he murdered them and why they died. He killed a bunch of innocent human beings because he believed they were sex workers, and that his extreme horniness was somehow their fault. It’s not terribly important whether they actually were sex workers. Part of what shaped this miserable excuse for a human being is his peers and political party’s demonizing of Asian people, and his conservative church’s demonizing of sex. Both of them need to reflect on how they’re helping to build a hateful and fearful culture for these young white men to grow up in.

Also on the other side of the coin in "speculation" mode, what’s the actual evidence that there were ever any “happy ending massages” at these locations? The police think maybe there were? If you cut out the sex workers and conclude he shot the massage parlors up because they didn’t live up to his racist stereotypes, and he was pissed after paying for an extra deluxe hour-long massage, and then when they didn’t know WTF he was talking about with “the happy ending” he went and got his gun because that’s how insecure losers respond when ashamed/embarrassed.

I tend to believe not all the locations he hit were brothels. An Aromatherapy spa with 60+ year old staff doesn't really fit that bill.

It looks a lot more like he was selectively killing Asians...

 

[VRAMdemon]

I tend to believe not all the locations he hit were brothels. An Aromatherapy spa with 60+ year old staff doesn't really fit that bill.

It looks a lot more like he was selectively killing Asians...

Yeah, One of the victims in Atlanta was on a date night with her husband — they were both getting massages, I assume the therapeutic type. He escaped injury. One of the victims apparently was an Asian-American woman who was a customer at the massage parlor where she was shot (no suggestion of sex work). I can't see some 21 year old fundie getting his rocks off by getting a handi from a 70 year old elderly Asian woman... but who knows. This looks more like he just shot the front office people and never got to the actual massage women? Some hyper-religious nutter who commits mass murder, and he most likely believes that HE is the victim, that he was lured there by an irresistible temptation.

It sounds like everyone he shot was either in the front office/customer waiting room or shot around the doorways. Call me an ageist, but I don’t think "happy ending massages", if that’s what these places were, would be staffed with a bunch of over 50 year old women. Although people have had weirder fetishes. If it turns out I’m wrong, I’ll come back to apologize.

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

They haven't really said if the victims were the only staff on site. As noted, these may be the front office and management staff and the attendants were in other areas.


But these are all just guesses and speculation.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

No, those places are brothels. That street on Piedmont road is like the Red Light District. There are strip clubs and massage parlors all down that road. No legit massage parlors are open 24/7 and have the customers park in the back of the buildings. I'm familiar with Gold Spa because I took my brother-in-law there so he could get service. I know people who hit that place after night out at strip clubs and hostess bars. It's popular place to take business clients after wining and dining them.

There's GoFundMe page setup by one the kid who's mom was killed. 15 hours and over $1 million raised so far.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/in-memory-of-hyunjungkim-to-support-my-brother-i

Yeah I didn't think that was the case until I saw some pictures. Normally I would think a "happy ending" massage parlor would just be a hole in the wall place where you know the secret passcode to get a handy afterwards.

Replace Spa with Stripclub here and you would say "That looks like like a strip club" lol

 

[skyking]

you all are talking about it as if it somehow excused the murders. It does not mean fuckall, nobody deserved to die.

 

[Fenixgoon]

you all are talking about it as if it somehow excused the murders. It does not mean fuckall, nobody deserved to die.

1000000000000000000% this

 

[Heartbreaker]

you all are talking about it as if it somehow excused the murders. It does not mean fuckall, nobody deserved to die.

WTF gives you that idea? No fucking excuse whatsoever.

I just think the scumbag hates Asians, and that this is probably an anti-Asian hate crime. The "removing temptations" angle just doesn't carry that much water.

I guess in the end, it doesn't matter what his screwed up reasons were. He committed 8 premeditated murders, over multiple locations, so he should be getting the maximum of whatever the law provides for.

Generally I am not in favor of capital punishment (with so many wrongful incarcerations), but in this case where the act is particularly heinous, and there really is no doubt, I won't lose any sleep if they want to fry this waste of air.

 

[skyking]

What gives me the idea? all this talk about happy endings and brothels. Like it means a god damned thing. That's the America that I have grown to despise, the one that is more concerned about things like that over human life. It's the mindless chatter of a fucked up society.

 

[Heartbreaker]

What gives me the idea? all this talk about happy endings and brothels. Like it means a god damned thing. That's the America that I have grown to despise, the one that is more concerned about things like that over human life. It's the mindless chatter of a fucked up society.

Context matters. All I was saying is that I didn't think "The Aromatherapy Spa" looked anything like a brothel. And that it looks more likely he was just shooting up some Asian workplaces he knew about. Maybe some were brothels, that isn't the important point.

The important point was that it looked more like an anti-Asian hate crime, targeting Asian women at multiple businesses.

That doesn't imply it would be ok, if it was an anti-sex worker hate crime.

Just looking at pieces that didn't seem to fit the narrative.

 

[skyking]

@guidryp , if you go back to my original post I did not single you out. If I intended to, I would have quoted you.
Don't you see that it is the basic narrative that is fucked up here? It gets driven into the weeds of the moral majority concern, and often with no intention by the participants.
Once it gets there, it gets exploited by those who don't give two fucks about those victims lives, their families, friends.

 

[pmv]

you all are talking about it as if it somehow excused the murders. It does not mean fuckall, nobody deserved to die.

I don't really see that in the thread, myself. Doesn't sound to me like anyone is being sick enough to try to minimise or justify the murders.

At the risk of adding to a discussion that may, nevertheless, be a bit besides the point, It does seem like there's a degree of uncertainty about the motive - namely where the balance lies between racism and misogyny. If he was killing them because he thought they were connected to the sex industry (which it really sounds as if they weren't, in reality) then that's pretty standard misogyny - blaming women for his own weird issues. If he was instead targetting Asians in general then it's more purely racist. Probably it's a mixture of both. That, and easy access to the means.

I mean, either the underlying problem is racism, or it's misogyny, or it's the easy availability of guns that allows people to act murderously on whatever particular form of hate they have. The US seems to have decided that nothing can ever be done about number three, so it's understandable for people to debate which of the first two is the 'real cause'.

 

[Jaskalas]

Ever wonder why attempting to kill the President isn't just simple attempted murder?

If attempted murder (it's not) was life in prison, then they wouldn't need an extra charge.
Here we have a mass murderer. We know he faces life in prison if not execution.
We won't need to add subjective BS into what is already a maxed out case by objective standards.

 

[Jaskalas]

I tend to believe not all the locations he hit were brothels. An Aromatherapy spa with 60+ year old staff doesn't really fit that bill.

It looks a lot more like he was selectively killing Asians...

No one could possibly believe (or imagine for themselves that...) massage parlors have additional service.....
Their business was targeted. That's because of where they worked, not because of who they are.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

@guidryp , if you go back to my original post I did not single you out. If I intended to, I would have quoted you.
Don't you see that it is the basic narrative that is fucked up here? It gets driven into the weeds of the moral majority concern, and often with no intention by the participants.
Once it gets there, it gets exploited by those who don't give two fucks about those victims lives, their families, friends.

For me, it's more academic than anything. I'm just curious as to what makes people act, and what encouraged them or pressured them to take that action. If someone wants to exploit the situation, they're going to do so regardless of the information (see: everyone already trying to exploit it) so that's irrelevant to the discussion.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

At this point - it's already been declared that thus far in the review of the evidence there is zero signs of it being a target racist crime. Can something else come up to prove otherwise? Sure. Until then, any suggestion that it was targetted racism is just complete and total dipshits frothing at the mouth for any kind of story that they can use to further drive their segregationism.

Literally the roommate of the killer has come out and said he doesn't make any kind of mention about race - and it was always about sex and his temptations. One would think if you hated asians and found them to be inferior one would mention some hints to the person they live with.

The only thing racist here is everyone stereotyping asians as massage workers.

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

If attempted murder (it's not) was life in prison, then they wouldn't need an extra charge.
Here we have a mass murderer. We know he faces life in prison if not execution.
We won't need to add subjective BS into what is already a maxed out case by objective standards.

This the point I made earlier. Permanent prison is a sure thing. There is no reason to stack charges.

There was no reason to stack the additional charges here either:

Kentucky Kroger shooter pleads guilty to federal hate crimes - UPI.com

A man accused of killing two people in what authorities described as a racially motivated shooting at a Kentucky Kroger has pleaded guilty to federal hate crime and firearm charges.

www.upi.com

 

[woolfe9998]

I don't really see that in the thread, myself. Doesn't sound to me like anyone is being sick enough to try to minimise or justify the murders.

At the risk of adding to a discussion that may, nevertheless, be a bit besides the point, It does seem like there's a degree of uncertainty about the motive - namely where the balance lies between racism and misogyny. If he was killing them because he thought they were connected to the sex industry (which it really sounds as if they weren't, in reality) then that's pretty standard misogyny - blaming women for his own weird issues. If he was instead targetting Asians in general then it's more purely racist. Probably it's a mixture of both. That, and easy access to the means.

I mean, either the underlying problem is racism, or it's misogyny, or it's the easy availability of guns that allows people to act murderously on whatever particular form of hate they have. The US seems to have decided that nothing can ever be done about number three, so it's understandable for people to debate which of the first two is the 'real cause'.

At this point, I don't see why race is a likely theory of motive here. At first I thought maybe it was, but then evidence of a sex addiction/shame motive came out, and then of course there is the fact that the vast majority of massage parlor staff are Asian women, be they actual masseurs or otherwise. Especially on the east coast.

Meaning it doesn't need to be racist or else a strange coincidence that 6 of the 8 victims were Asian. Anyone wanting to shoot up massage parlors because of a sexual motive is going to be killing mostly Asian women.

Also, had it been about race, he might just as well admitted to it. It isn't going to affect the outcome. In GA, he will almost certainly get the death penalty, if not life without parole.

Could race have been part of the motive? Sure. But there is no evidence of it, so it's pure speculation.