Eight dead in US’ Georgia mass shootings

A 21-year-old man suspected in the shootings was taken into custody in southwest Georgia hours later after a manhunt, police said, according to Fox News.

The attacks began around 5 pm, when five people were shot at a massage parlor near a rural area in Acworth.

Two people died at the scene and three were transported to a hospital where two of them also died.

Authorities were not immediately releasing the gender or race of the victims. No one was arrested at the scene.

Around 5:50 pm, police in the Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta, responding to a call of a robbery in progress, found three women dead from apparent gunshot wounds. While they were at that scene, they learned of a call reporting shots fired at another spa across the street, Aromatherapy Spa, and found a woman who appeared to have been shot dead inside the business.

The killings came amid a recent wave of attacks against Asian Americans that coincided with the spread of the coronavirus across the US.

A man suspected in the Acworth shooting was captured by surveillance video pulling up to the business around 4:50 p.m. Tuesday, minutes before the attack, authorities said. The suspect has been taken into custody in Crisp County, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) south of Atlanta.

MNA/PR