Police have identified 5 of the 9 victims who were hurt and killed at a spa in Acworth, Georgia.
Police have identified five of the nine victims they say they were fatally shot by 21-year-old Robert Long, the alleged gunman who pursued deadly attacks at three different Georgia spas Tuesday evening.
Officials have identified the victims found inside Young’s Asian Massage in Acworth as Delaina Ashley Yaun, 33, of Acworth; Daoyou Feng, 44; Xiaojie Tan, 49, of Kennesaw; and Paul Andre Michels, 54, a U.S. Army veteran, the New York Times reported. Elcias R. Hernandez-Ortiz, 30, of Acworth, was critically injured in the attack, according to family members.
The remaining four victims' identities have not been released pending family notification.
Hernandez-Ortiz is reportedly the only survivor out of the nine victims in the parlor attacks, his family told WGCL.
"I don't really know what to do. I try to calm myself down," his 9-year-old daughter, Yoselina Gonzalez, told WGCL. "He is a really good dad. I don't want him to go."
Ortiz was shot in the forehead and the bullet traveled down to his lungs and into his stomach, according to the victim's family. He is currently being treated in the intensive care unit, where he is clinging to his life.
Over half of the family's $30,000 goal has been raised so far for his medical treatment, according to the GoFundMe page created by the victim's wife.
A second victim, Delaina Yuan, and her husband went to Young's Asian Massage parlor in Acworth for a couple's massage when the gunman walked in firing bullets, CNN reported. Her husband made it out safely but Yuan, a mother of two, succumbed to her injuries, according to a fundraiser created on behalf of her family.
Eight victims have been declared dead. Six of them were Asian women and four of them were of Korean ethnicity. In total, seven of the casualties were women.
The Asian American community has been rattled by these attacks, declaring it racially motivated. However, police authorities at the Cherokee County Sheriff's office have not identified the alleged assailant's motive.
Police say the shooter told them he has struggled with "sexual addiction" for which he blamed the spas, the Times reported.
The sheriff's office said as of Wednesday that they are still in the "early stages of the investigation" and have not called the attacks a hate crime.
"We are unable to make that determination at this moment," Chief Rodney Bryant said during the press conference.
However, members of the public and politicians alike have spoken publicly about the horrific incident as a debate over the cultural and racial implications roars on.
"Regardless of the motivation, given the concerns the community already has in light of all the attacks that we've seen –– particularly against Asian American women and the elderly –– I think this is a reminder that we need to do everything that we possibly can to protect the most vulnerable among us," Georgia state Rep. Sam Park told CNN.
The alleged gunman has been charged on eight counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault, the Washington Post reported.
Inside Edition Digital has made multiple attempts to reach the sheriff's office for comment.
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