VIDEO. United States: 8 dead in shootings targeting Asian massage parlors in Atlanta, gunman arrested

Eight people, including six women of Asian descent, were shot and killed Tuesday at three Atlanta-area massage parlors.

The police did not know at the end of the evening whether the attacks had a racist motive, but they came against the backdrop of an upsurge in anti-Asian acts in the United States.

After examining the CCTV footage, "it is highly probable" that the same shooter was involved in all three attacks, a local police spokesperson told AFP.

The US federal police, the FBI, are also participating in the investigation.

While it is sometimes difficult to establish the xenophobic motive for an attack, crimes motivated by anti-Asian racism nearly tripled from 49 to 122 last year in the 16 largest American cities, from after a study by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism based in San Bernardino, California. Georgia has nearly 500,000 inhabitants of Asian origin, or just over 4% of its population, according to the Asian American Advocacy Fund, an Asian human rights group in the United States.