Barack Obama condemns recent shooting in Atlanta

The recent shooting that occurred at a spa in Atlanta, Georgia, has sparked an ongoing movement to condemn the rising number of reports of hate crimes towards Asian Americans. Following the killings, former President Barack Obama took to social media to blast the incident.

Obama reflected on the recent killings that occurred in Atlanta, Georgia, where eight people were shot at a spa, six of whom were Asian American. The former president condemned the violence that occurred while also urging lawmakers to pass gun safety laws as well, noting that the pandemic has made Americans forget the dangers of not having gun safety laws in place.

“Even as we’ve battled the pandemic, we’ve continued to neglect the longer-lasting epidemic of gun violence in America. Although the shooter’s motive is not yet clear, the identity of the victims underscores an alarming rise in anti-Asian violence that must end,” tweeted Obama.

“Yesterday’s shootings are another tragic reminder that we have far more work to do to put in place commonsense gun safety laws and root out the pervasive patterns of hatred and violence in our society,” He added.

Local law enforcement arrested 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long who is charged with four counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault. Officials have yet to determine if it was a racially-motivated crime. Long was reportedly heading for Florida to carry out more shootings and suggested to officials that he was suffering from a sex addiction and wanted to get rid of spas out of “temptation.”

Previously, the former president’s Twitter account among the accounts of other prominent figures like Elon Musk and Bill Gates, was hacked in a Bitcoin scam in 2020. Recently, authorities arrested the mastermind, 18-year-old Graham Ivan Clark of Florida, who recently reached an agreement with prosecutors to spend three years in juvenile prison.

Clark was accused of hacking into the Twitter accounts of several prominent figures, using their accounts to tweet messages that would solicit over $100,000 in Bitcoin. The scheme brought in around $117,000 in Bitcoin before it was ultimately shut down. This has since led to criticism towards the security of the social media platform.