The sheriff apologized for a spokesperson’s comment that the Atlanta massage parlor massacre suspect was having “a bad day.” The Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office is having a bad day. In a Thursday statement, Sheriff Frank Reynolds tried to explain why department spokesperson Jay Baker pinned Tuesday’s massage parlor shootings on a 21-year-old white man’s “really bad day”—saying Baker was also having a tough time. “Comments made by Cherokee County Sheriffs Office Captain Jay Baker have become the subject of much debate and anger,” Reynolds said. “In as much as his words were taken or construed as insensitive or inappropriate, they were not intended to disrespect any of the victims, the gravity of this tragedy, or express empathy or sympathy for the suspect.” Reynolds added that while “there are simply no words to describe the degree of human suffering experienced” on Tuesday, “Captain Baker had a difficult task before him, and this was one of the hardest in his twenty-eight years in law enforcement.” Robert Aaron Long is accused of killing eight people during a shooting rampage at three massage parlors in the Atlanta area on Tuesday night. During a Wednesday news conference, Baker seemed to downplay the killings, telling reporters Long attributed it to his “sexual addiction” issues. Baker said Long targeted the spas to “take out that temptation.” “He was pretty much fed up and had been kind of at the end of his rope,” Capt. Baker said during the joint news conference with the Atlanta Police Department. “Yesterday was a really bad day for him, and this is what he did.”
Police said Long, who was caught two hours after the shootings and allegedly confessed, insisted he didn’t intentionally target people of Asian descent. Still, police—including Baker—said the investigation was ongoing and the murders could still be categorized as a hate crime. On Thursday, Atlanta Police revealed Long has previously frequented at least two of the parlors he gunned down. And the fact that Long allegedly targeted Asian massage parlors and killed a half-dozen Asian women has spurred uproar online and among community leaders. Nearly 3,800 incidents of anti-Asian hate were reported between March 2020 and last month, according to Stop AAPI Hate, a national coalition documenting discrimination during the pandemic. Making matters worse, The Daily Beast found several photos on Baker’s personal Facebook page in which he promoted T-shirts with the slogan “COVID-19 imported virus from CHY-NA.”
via daily beast: Cherokee County Sheriff Gives Pass to Another White Guy Having a ‘Bad Day’