Update (March 18, 2021): A Georgia sheriff’s office said on Thursday that it regrets comments from Capt. Jay Baker regarding 21-year-old shooter Robert Aaron Long, insisting that the captain did not mean to cause harm or offend anyone. 

According to the New York Post, Cherokee County Sheriff Frank Reynolds issued a press release on Twitter, saying Baker’s remarks during a press conference on Wednesday “were not intended to disrespect any of the victims.” Reynolds expressed that his office was remorseful over the insensitive comment that seemed to sympathize with the man accused of killing eight people at three separate massage spas near Atlanta earlier this week.

“Comments made by Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office Captain Jay Baker have become the subject of much debate and anger,” Reynolds said in the 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.”

As Blavity previously reported, Baker tried to explain the motive for the 21-year-old, ultimately downplaying it as a “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 on Wednesday. “Yesterday was a really bad day for him, and this is what he did.”

In response to the captain’s remarks on the matter, critics took to social media to voice their outrage over how the spokesman decided to rationalize the unfortunate tragedy. 

Georgia State Representative Bee Nguyen tweeted in frustration over Baker’s commentary regarding the situation. 

“It wasn’t a bad day. It was a brutal and violent crime in which racism, misogyny, gender-based violence, and lax gun laws intersect,” she wrote. 

According to HuffPost, Reynolds also said that Baker’s “personal ties to the Asian community” are exemplary, in spite of the fact that the captain promoted merchandise that disparaged China in connection to the coronavirus. 

The sheriff did not make any reference to the shirts, but was previously informed about the bigoted shirts from the Daily Beast. 

Following the release of Reynold’s statement, it was confirmed that Baker would no longer be the spokesperson in regards to the shootings, per HuffPost.

Original (March 18, 2021): Captain Jay Baker, the spokesman for the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office in Georgia, is under fire for suggesting that the Atlanta-area shooter "had a 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 Wednesday. “Yesterday was a really bad day for him, and this is what he did.”

Baker was addressing the motive behind 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long's killing spree which led to the death of eight women, six of whom were of Asian descent. 

Baker is also accused of sharing anti-Asian posts on Facebook last year, supporting former President Donald Trump's inflammatory "China virus" rhetoric. 

People subsequently took their outrage to Twitter to address Baker's comment and unpack the situation. 

Georgia State Representative Bee Nguyen expressed her frustration with Baker trivializing Long's motives. 

Some Twitter users even explained what a typical bad day looks like, and a small list of how to remedy one aside from killing people. 

As hate crimes against Asian Americans have continued to rise amid the coronavirus pandemic, Cherokee County Sheriff Frank Reynolds told CNBC on Wednesday that they will not rule out race as a motivating factor in the incidents. 

“He [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 in the interview. “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.”

Since the start of the pandemic in the U.S., there has been a surge of attacks against Asian Americans, as Blavity previously reported. As of March 2021, the number of reported hate crimes committed against Asian Americans was more than 3,000 since this exact time last year, NPR reported.

Although the number of hate crimes against Asian Americans has increased significantly, advocates are concerned that the number is still inaccurate due to underreporting. 

CEO of Asian Americans Advancing Justice Connie Chung Joe said underreporting stems from language and cultural barriers with police. 

"If the community feels that the police aren't going to do anything, then chances are that word gets around and the community feels next time I'm not going to report it then. What's the point?" Joe said.

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