Georgia Cop Who Said Atlanta Shooter Had 'Bad Day' Previously Endorsed Racist T-Shirts

KEY POINTS

Posts from the police officer endorsing racist COVID-19 shirts were deleted shortly
Captain Jay Baker deleted his Facebook page after stories about his posts surfaced
Social media users are adamant the crime involved an anti-Asian agenda

People on social media have been criticizing the Georgia sheriff’s captain Jay Baker after he downplayed the crimes of the Atlanta shooter, who went on a shooting spree at multiple spas.

Social media users found even more reason to condemn Baker after one of his previous Facebook posts from March 2020, endorsing COVID-19 T-shirts with a racist message on them, surfaced.

According to a post by Twitter user Rich Phelps, between March and April last year, Baker made several social media posts, including photos of T-shirts that depicted a biohazard symbol along with a statement saying COVID-19 was a virus imported “from CHY-NA.”

The statement on the T-shirt is similar to what former President Donald Trump repeatedly claimed throughout last year while the pandemic blazed through the world.

Hey Captain Jay Baker with Cherokee Country Sheriff's Office... this you? pic.twitter.com/1pTlwSlYZQ
— Rich Phelps (@RichPhelps) March 17, 2021

It seems that Baker was advertising for an apparel store that was selling these racist shirts. The apparel store called Deadline Apparel is “a local veteran-owned and operated screen printing shop” in Georgia.

Soon after stories about Baker's Facebook posts got published, they were deleted and the entirety of his Facebook page was gone.

Many people shared concerns over how Baker was minimizing the role Asian hate had in the Atlanta spa shooting after he made a statement at a press conference saying the shooting spree wasn’t because of an anti-Asian agenda. He, instead, claimed the day of the shooting spree was a “really bad day” for the shooter.

"Yesterday was a really bad day for him and this is what he did" -- a law enforcement official explains Robert Aaron Long's decision to kill 8 people in a strange manner pic.twitter.com/u0zFcqjbNK
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 17, 2021

According to the police, Robert Aaron Long on Tuesday killed eight people in a shooting spree in Atlanta. Six of the victims were Asian women, which made people think Asian hate was the reason for the crime.

The investigation allegedly hasn’t made significant progress, but the authorities stated Long has claimed he was driven to go through with the shooting spree to eliminate "temptations" that instigated his sex addiction.

People don’t believe that race didn’t play a part in the crime. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) tweeted, if the temptations of the murderer were Asian women and he ends up killing them, then “that’s racially motivated.”