Church Disowns Atlanta Spas Shooter; Police Investigator Removed

OVER the last couple of days two new developments have occurred in the case of mass shooter Robert Aaron Long: his church has removed him, and a spokesman for a Georgia Sheriff’s Office – Captain Jay Baker, above, – was taken off the case after it emerged that he had used social media to promoting T-shirts with racist language about China and the coronavirus.

Crabapple First Baptist Church in Milton, Georgia, said in a fresh statement that it plans to remove 21-year-old Long from its membership because it:

Can no longer affirm that he is truly a regenerate believer in Jesus Christ.

Previously the church had only issued a lame statement expressing condolences for the victims – mainly Asian women and their families – without mentioning Long himself. It also shut down its social media accounts and made its website private.

On Friday it said those measures were taken to protect the safety of its congregants.

The statement said:

We watched Aaron grow up and accepted him into church membership when he made his own profession of faith in Jesus Christ. These unthinkable and egregious murders directly contradict his own confession of faith in Jesus and the gospel.

Meanwhile The Cherokee County Communications Director Erika Neldner announce that she would be handling media inquiries related to Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office’s investigation into Tuesday’s slayings.

The statement did not give details about the currennt status of Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Baker. He’d been the target of widespread criticism for Facebook posts promoting the T-shirts and also for saying during a news conference Wednesday that murder suspect Robert Aaron Long, 21, had “a really bad day” and “this is what he did.”

The shirts post went viral shortly after Baker drew criticism for both seeming to distance the case from being a hate crime while also telling reporters that Long had a “really bad day.”

Asian American activists said Baker’s comments and the Facebook post undermine public confidence that investigators are adequately addressing Tuesday’s atrocity.

Said Vincent Pan, co-executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action, a civil rights organisation working to address anti-Asian hate crimes:

To see this post is both disturbing and outrageous. It speaks to the structural racism that we’re all up against.

Coupled with the comments coming out of the news conference, it does not give community members confidence that our experiences and the pain and the suffering that we’re feeling are being taken seriously, at least by this particular person.

At least one prominent Democrat, Rep. Ted Lieu of California, called for the investigation to be handled by the FBI due to all the controversy, saying he wouldn’t:

Have confidence in the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office to conduct a fair investigation that respected the Asian victims.

He is quoted in this report as saying:

All of us have experienced bad days. But we don’t go to three Asian businesses and shoot up Asian employees.

A Facebook account, belonging to a “Jay Baker”, features numerous photos of Cherokee County sheriff going back months, including one in which he is in uniform outside the sheriff’s office. The account was deleted on Wednesday night.

Six of the eight victims of Tuesday’s attacks were of Asian descent, including two of the four victims who were killed in Cherokee County.

Baker did not respond to voicemails and an email requesting comment on the Facebook post. The sheriff’s office also did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.