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Authorities investigate a fatal shooting at Young’s Asian Massage on Tuesday in Acworth, Georgia. (AP/Yonhap News)

Amid an upsurge in racist hate crimes directed at Asians in the US, eight people, including four ethnic Koreans, were killed in a shooting spree Tuesday around Atlanta, Georgia. Shots were fired at three separate massage parlors, the first of which is operated by a Chinese-American and the second and third of which are operated by ethnic Koreans. Six of the eight victims were of Asian descent.

The police have arrested a suspect, a 21-year-old white man, and are investigating the motives behind the crime. Local press and nonprofit organizations believe it was likely a hate crime aimed at people of Asian descent.

This shocking incident comes amid a recent spate of crimes aimed at people of Asian descent in the US.

An employee at one of the massage parlors where the shootings occurred told other Korean establishments in the area that the shooter had said he was going to kill all Asians before committing the crime, the Korea Times Atlanta reported.

“This latest attack will only exacerbate the fear and pain that the Asian American community continues to endure,” a nonprofit group called Stop AAPI Hate said in a statement. AAPI stands for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. The organization said it had received reports of 3,795 hate incidents between March 2020 and February 2021.

Asian Americans’ lives and safety were severely threatened even before the shootings occurred. Throughout his time in office, former president Donald Trump incited racism in order to secure support from white supremacists on the far right. During the pandemic, Trump referred to the COVID-19 virus as the “China virus,” stirring up hatred of the Chinese.

As a result, the entire community of Asian Americans has become the target of hate crimes. Early this month, an 83-year-old Korean woman in New York was knocked unconscious in an unprovoked attack. In January, a Thai man in his 80s in San Francisco was struck on his head in an attack and later died.

In 16 major American cities, hate crimes against Asians have reportedly increased by 149% over the past year, even as total hate crimes have decreased by 7%.

On Jan. 26, US President Joe Biden signed the “Memorandum Condemning and Combating Racism, Xenophobia, and Intolerance Against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States.”

American society needs to recognize the severity of racist hate crimes and devise meaningful measures to enable all citizens, regardless of their race, to live in safety, without the threat of violence.

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