Spa shootings suspect was traveling to Florida 'perhaps to carry out additional shootings' before being arrested, Atlanta mayor says

• The Atlanta spa shootings suspect was travelling to Florida when he was taken into custody, Atlanta's mayor said on Wednesday.
• She said he was on his way to "perhaps to carry out additional shootings."
• Robert Aaron Long, 21, was arrested in connection to the shootings on Tuesday.

The suspect in Atlanta-area shootings that left eight people dead on Tuesday night was traveling to Florida before being taking into custody by police, and may have been on his way "to perhaps to carry out additional shootings," Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said at a press conference on Wednesday.

"This could have been significantly worse," Bottoms said of the shootings at three massage parlors in the Atlanta metro area.

Robert Aaron Long, 21, was arrested in connection to the shootings on Tuesday following a car chase south of Atlanta.

The shootings took place at three businesses in two locations. The first was at Young's Asian Massage Parlor in Cherokee County, where four people were killed, the second was at Gold Spa in Atlanta, where three women were killed, and the third was at the nearby Aromatherapy Spa, where one person was killed.

While the victims who were killed in Atlanta have not yet been identified, those who died in Cherokee County were named by the local sheriff's office on Wednesday morning.

Delaina Ashley Yaun, 33, Paul Andre Michels, 54, Xiaojie Yan, 49, and Daoyou Feng, 44, were identified as the victims killed at Young's Asian Massage Parlor, according to WSBTC. A fifth person, 30-year-old Elcias Hernandez, was injured in the shooting and is in stable condition.

Law enforcement said that six of the eight victims were Asian women. The other two victims were a white woman and a white man.

Officials have not revealed a motive in the shooting but said at Wednesday's press conference that Long told investigators that he had previously been to the massage parlors where the shootings took place.

Officials also said that Long claimed to have a sex addiction.

The shooting occurred as the United States is facing a wave of hate crimes against Asian Americans.

Police said the investigation is still ongoing, and that it's too soon to say whether the killings were racially motivated.

Bottoms still, however, called out the spike in hate crimes against Asian Americans at Wednesday's press conference.

"We know that many of the victims, the majority of the victims, were Asian," she said. "We also know that this is an issue that's happening across the country. It is unacceptable, it is hateful, and it has to stop."