Mario González, a Mexican man who survived the shootings at the massage parlors in Atlanta last week, said he was handcuffed by police and detained for about four hours when he tried to find his wife who died at the scene.
"I wanted to know if she is alive or dead. They ignored me," the devastated husband told Mundo Hispánico. "They had me on patrol the entire time until they investigated."
González and his wife, Delaina Ashley Yaun, were getting massages in separate rooms when the suspect, Robert Aaron Long, opened fire and killed eight people on Tuesday. The couple had just married last spring.
"It was a very sad day. We were going with the intention of giving ourselves a massage," González said.
He expressed his frustration with the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office, according to The New York Times, saying he might have been treated poorly because of his ethnicity.
“Maybe because I’m Mexican, I don’t know,” he said. “Because the truth is, they treated me badly.”
Recounting the horrific scene, González said police didn't allow him to see his wife as he was led out of the spa.
“And they knew that I was the husband,” he said, holding a photograph of himself with his wife as he spoke to reporters. “They gave me the news that she was dead.”
The grieving man waited for police to arrive when he heard the shots at the massage parlor, afraid to open the door.
“The police arrived. But what did they do? Arrest me," he said.
González is now left with his 8-month-old daughter and 14-year-old stepson.
"What I am going to do?" he said. "We both worked to get ahead. I have nothing."
The couple met at a Waffle House restaurant, where he was a customer and she was a server who was working hard as a single mother raising her teen son. González and Yaun married last year and had a daughter together.
The 33-year-old mother was among the eight people who died when the 21-year-old gunman opened fire at the Acworth spa, one of three massage parlors that were attacked. The suspect was found two hours later, about 150 miles south of Atlanta.
“That murderer only left me pain,” González said. "What I need most right now is support.”
As Blavity previously reported, the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office faced scrutiny after the spokesperson, Capt. Jay Baker described the gunman as having “a really bad day.”
“He was pretty much fed up and had been kind of at the end of his rope,” Baker said at a news conference. “Yesterday was a really bad day for him, and this is what he did.”
Sheriff Frank Reynolds issued an apology after the department faced backlash.
“Comments made by Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office Captain Jay Baker have become the subject of much debate and anger,” Reynolds said in a statement. “In as much as his words were taken or construed as insensitive or inappropriate, they were not intended to disrespect any of the victims, the gravity of the situation, or express empathy or sympathy for the suspect.”
According to USA Today, six of the victims in Tuesday's shooting were women of Asian descent, leading to additional concern about the increase in hate crimes against Asians. Police said they haven't ruled out the possibility that race could have been a motivating factor in the incident.
“[Long] does make a full confession, and during that interview, I did not hear anything about race other than us asking the question, although, we’re not going to rule that out,” Reynolds said. “Obviously, we’re going to continue this investigation and go off of every lead and every possible angle that we can, but it’s still a little early to tell.”
Margaret Rushing, Yaun's mother, said her son-in-law is taking it hard after the devastating loss of his wife.
“He was there. He heard the gunshots and everything," she said. "You can’t escape that when you’re in a room and gunshots are flying – what do you do?”
The family has set up a GoFundMe page to help cover funeral costs.
"We lost A beautiful Angel in the massage parlor shooting," the family wrote. "She has two beautiful babies she is leaving behind. We just don't know how to do any of this alone."
