Gov. Ned Lamont directed that flags be lowered to half-staff “as a mark of solemn respect for the victims of the senseless acts of violence perpetrated on March 16 in the Atlanta metropolitan area.”

A white gunman was charged Wednesday with killing eight people at three Atlanta-area massage parlors in an attack that sent terror through the Asian American community, which has increasingly been targeted during the coronavirus pandemic.

A day after the shootings, investigators were trying to unravel a motive to commit the worst mass killing in the U.S. in almost two years.

Robert Aaron Long, 21, told police that Tuesday’s attack was not racially motivated. He claimed to have a “sex addiction,” and authorities said he apparently lashed out at what he saw as sources of temptation. But those statements spurred outrage and widespread skepticism given the locations and that six of the eight victims were women of Asian descent.

Lamont is directing U.S. and state flags in Connecticut to fly at half-staff until sunset on Monday, March 22.

AP Wire Services were used in this report.