Details Emerge On Some Victims Of Tragic Atlanta Spa Shootings
Six of the eight names have been released in the tragic Atlanta-area spa shootings
On Tuesday, eight people tragically lost their lives as a result of anti-Asian violence. Seven were women, six of whom were Asian. They were killed by a shooter who attacked three Atlanta-area spas. And today, the names of six of the victims have been released.
Details Released On 6 Victims Of Atlanta-Area Spa Shootings
THESE ARE THEIR NAMES
TO THE MEDIA: FIGURE OUT HOW TO SAY THEIR NAMES. THANKS.
Delaina Ashley Yaun
Paul Andre Michels
Xiaojie Tan
Daoyou Feng
Julie Park
Hyeon Jeong Park
(two more not yet released)
#Atlanta— Jenny Yang (@jennyyangtv) March 18, 2021
In the first shooting at Young’s Asian Massage in Acworth, Georgia, four people died and one person was injured, according to Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office officials. The other four victims, all of whom are Asian women and specifically of Korean descent, were shot and killed at two spas across the street from each other.
The victims of the Atlanta-area spa shootings are identified as the following:
Delaina Ashley Yaun, 33
Yaun is the mother of two children, 13-year-old Mayson and 8-month-old Mia. Yaun worked at the Waffle House a few stores down from Tan’s massage spa, and she would feed the homeless and offer them showers and clean clothes.
“You don’t find people like that,” John Beck, Yaun’s manager of three years, told BuzzFeed News. “Her heart was so big. She loved people and she loved her children, she was a very, very special person to me.”
A GoFundMe was set up for Yaun and her family.
Xiaojie Tan, 49
Xiaojie Tan emigrated to the US from China & has one daughter who recently graduated from UGA.
A hard working small business owner, she housed her staff, also from China. They focused on earning money for their families overseas. #StopAsianHate https://t.co/nehUPTxDTv pic.twitter.com/fB2rQzjzx6
— Frances Wang (#FrannyInMiami) (@FrancesWangTV) March 18, 2021
Tan, an entrepreneur, was the owner of Young’s Asian Massage and the registered owner of several small businesses. According to The Cut, Tan’s daughter recently graduated from the University of Georgia.
“She was the sweetest person you’d ever meet,” Hynson told USA Today. “My heart was in my throat the second I heard of it. It still doesn’t seem real.”
Daoyou Feng, 44
Feng died at Young’s Asian Massage and reportedly only recently started working at the spa.
Paul Andre Michels, 54
Michels was an Army veteran, his brother John Michels told the Daily Beast. And according to Fred Michels, his other brother, the family is in complete shock after Paul’s death.
“I’m mad, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” Kikiana Whidby told CBS 46 of Paul, the godfather to her son.
Julie Park & Hyeon Jeong Park
The Korea Times Atlanta named Julie, who was in her 70s, and Hyeon Jeong, a woman in her 50s, as victims. They were reportedly Gold Spa employees.
this is my best attempt at pronouncing the names we have so far of those murdered in #Atlanta
Delaina Ashley Yaun
Paul Andre Michels
Xiaojie Tan
Daoyou Feng
Julie Park
Hyeon Jeong Park pic.twitter.com/7kwAdoHy69— Jenny Yang (@jennyyangtv) March 18, 2021
Only one person survived the attack, Elcias R. Hernandez-Ortiz, who is reportedly in stable condition after being shot in the forehead, lungs and stomach.

A GoFundMe was set up to help cover Hernandez-Ortiz’s medical bills. So far, the fundraiser has raised $37,000.
The suspect, 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long, was charged with murder over the killing of eight people.
Long currently faces multiple counts of murder as well as aggravated assault. Officials have yet to confirm if the attack was racially motivated.
“He apparently has an issue, what he considers a sex addiction, and sees these locations as a temptation for him that he wanted to eliminate,” said Capt. Jay Baker. Baker not only added that Long was carrying a 9mm handgun, but he also said that the day of the shootings was “a really bad day for [Long] and this is what he did.” Baker has since come under fire for his comments that seem to excuse the severity of Long’s crime — and rightly so.
The shootings follow an alarming spike in anti-Asian hate incidents over the past year.
According to nonprofit coalition Stop AAPI Hate, 3,795 incidents were reported across the country between March 2020 and February of this year — up nearly 150 percent over 2019.
Stop AAPI Hate is proud to announce our latest national report, measuring anti-Asian hate incidents from March 2020-Feb 2021. In the last 12 months, we have tracked 3,795 hate incident reports from APIs in all 50 states and DC. pic.twitter.com/fbKUUdByvj
— Stop AAPI Hate (@StopAAPIHate) March 16, 2021
Red Canary Song, a grassroots collective of Asian sex workers, released a statement today calling for rights and protections for spa workers.
“We see the effort to invisibilize these women’s gender, labor, class, and immigration status as a refusal to reckon with the legacy of United States imperialism, and as a desire to collapse the identities of migrant Asian women, sex workers, massage workers, and trafficking survivors,” they wrote.
“The women who were killed faced specific racialized gendered violence for being Asian women and massage workers,” they continue. “Whether or not they were actually sex workers or self-identified under that label, we know that as massage workers, they were subjected to sexualized violence stemming from the hatred of sex workers, Asian women, working class people, and immigrants.”