On March 16, 2021, a shooting spree occurred at two spas and a massage parlor in the metropolitan area of Atlanta, Georgia, United States.

Long told police he was motivated by a sexual addiction that was at odds with his Christianity, for which he had spent time in an evangelical treatment clinic, and that he had been targeting establishments where he had previously paid for sex.

[14] Another customer who went to Young's that day said in an interview that everything was still normal inside when he arrived at around 4:40 p.m.[15] When Long finished using the bathroom, he walked out, pulled out his 9mm handgun, and aimed it at Paul Andre Michels.

[16][17] The first 9-1-1 calls reporting the shooting to the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office were made at 4:54 p.m. Police arrived within minutes of Long leaving.

[18][21] At 5:47 p.m. EDT, the APD responded to reports of a robbery at Gold Massage Spa[22] on Piedmont Road in northeast Atlanta, about 30 miles (48 km) from the first shooting scene.

[25] Two Gold Massage Spa employees who survived the shooting reported hearing ticking sounds while in a break room, which turned out to be gunfire.

[26] According to a report from national Korean newspaper The Chosun Ilbo, a nearby Korean restaurant told how an unidentified Gold Massage Spa employee who escaped there from the store during the shooting stated that the shooter said, "I'm going to kill all Asians,"[3][4][5] although in a later Rolling Stone interview a taxi driver who had talked to a local business manager stated it was a police officer who had told the manager this.

[49] His parents had kicked him out of their house the night before the shooting due to concerns about his sex addiction, and said he watched internet pornography several hours each day.

[55] Ruth Graham, a national religion correspondent of The New York Times, wrote that Long "seemed to have a fixation on sexual temptation, one that can lead to despair among people who believe they are failing to follow the ideal of refraining from sex and even lust outside heterosexual marriage.

The World Health Organization includes "excessive sexual drive" as a diagnosis (code F52.7) in the latest version of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10), but as a compulsive behavior or impulse control disorder rather than an addiction.

[67] During the press conference, district attorney Fani Willis shared her plans to seek death penalty and hate crime enhancements if he is convicted of murder.

[69] On August 30, state prosecutors announced Willis had filed court papers seeking the death penalty against Long for the Fulton County charges and designating the Piedmont Road shootings as a hate crime based on race and gender.

[72][73] He and Vice President Kamala Harris subsequently met with local Asian American community leaders on March 19 to discuss the shootings.

[74] South Korean foreign minister Chung Eui-yong and national defense minister Suh Wook held a joint press conference in Seoul on March 19 with their U.S. counterparts Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin,[75][76][77] and the South Korean foreign ministry released a statement the following day addressing the shooting and the United States government's anti-hate crime efforts.

[85] Georgia House of Representatives member Sam Park urged Asian Americans who are facing discrimination to reach out to the police, politicians, and the public.

[37] Another member, Bee Nguyen, said that violence against Asian Americans has increased in the last year and identified as a causative factor Donald Trump's use of the term "Chinese Virus" to refer to COVID-19.

[8][90] The Hankyoreh called for American society to accept "the serious reality of racial bullying and hate crimes" and take steps to ensure everyone's safety regardless of race.

[91][9] The shootings prompted the Chinese Canadian National Council's Toronto chapter and other groups to issue a statement calling for action against rising anti-Asian sentiment in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic and the discrimination and violence faced by Asian workers in massage parlors and the sex industry.

[92] On March 23, the House of Commons of Canada unanimously passed a motion introduced by New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh condemning the shootings and the rise of anti-Asian sentiment across North America, as well as calling on the federal government to hold a federal-provincial summit on coordinating and funding anti-hate efforts.

[96][97] The New York City Police Department deployed counterterrorism officers to Asian American communities as a precaution due to the shootings.

[99] U.S. Representative Marilyn Strickland, a Korean American from Washington state, said from the House floor that racially-motivated hate crimes should be called out instead of "making excuses and rebranding it as economic anxiety or sexual addiction.

"[100] Li Zhou, writing for Vox, argued that no matter whether or not the crimes were due to sexual addiction, the main motive would nonetheless coincide with factors of race and gender, since the stereotype of Asian female spa workers being prostitutes would in and of itself be a racist, misogynistic line of thinking.

"[106] Several politicians expressed concern with how easy it was for Long to obtain a gun on the day of the shooting, with the Giffords Law Center saying he would have completed the required background check within 100 seconds.

[109] The day after the killings, Satirical news site The Onion republished its 'No Way To Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens article, with minor alterations to reflect the particular incident, as it routinely does in the aftermath of high-profile mass shootings.

[113] During a press conference on the shootings, Captain Jay Baker of the Cherokee County Sheriff's Department paraphrased what Long told investigators about his motives, saying "he was pretty much fed up and kind of at the end of his rope, and I guess it was a really bad day for him and this is what he did.

"[114][115][116] The phrase "really bad day" attracted criticism and led to the discovery of Baker's anti-Chinese sentiments on Facebook,[117] thereby calling the integrity of the investigation into question.

[5][121][122] Georgia State Senator Michelle Au said Baker's remarks showed that law enforcement handled crimes against particular groups differently.

Vincent Pan, a co-executive director of the civil rights group Chinese for Affirmative Action, said that Baker's involvement undermined Asian-American confidence that the investigation would be taken seriously.

According to WSB-TV, the incident prompted the Cherokee County Sheriff Department to briefly consider handing off its role in the case to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

[127] On March 21, thousands participated in protests in Atlanta, New York City, Washington, D.C., and Montreal, denouncing anti-Asian sentiment and hate crimes.