Fulton County DA will seek hate crime sentence enhancements in Atlanta-area spa shootings
CBSN
A Georgia district attorney has filed a formal notice that she intends to seek hate crime sentencing enhancements against the man accused of fatally shooting eight people — six of them Asian women — at Atlanta-area spas in March. Fani Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, where four of the killings took place, said she believes 22-year-old Robert Aaron Long was motivated by race and gender bias.
Long had already pleaded guilty to the other four killings in Cherokee County, where district attorney Shannon Wallace said an investigation didn't uncover evidence of a history of bias against any racial or ethnic group. Speaking at a press conference after Long appeared briefly in Fulton County court Monday, Willis said she has respect for the Cherokee County district attorney, but made her decision to pursue hate crime enhancements based on the facts, the law and her conscience.Authorities made two gruesome discoveries Tuesday after a Missouri woman walked into a police station and told officers that she fatally shot one of her children and drowned the other, officials said. Jefferson County Sheriff Dave Marshak said at a news conference that authorities believe both children were killed Tuesday morning.
Strong storms with damaging winds and baseball-sized hail pummeled Texas on Tuesday, leaving more than one million businesses and homes without power as much of the U.S. recovered from severe weather, including tornadoes, that killed at least 24 people in seven states during the Memorial Day holiday weekend.