Jingbo Shan, 32, was working.
Shan is almost always working, taking calls from customers wanting to book the neck and back or foot massage combo, or the Ponce Feet spa’s $120 couple’s massage. He makes sure the massage rooms are clean and stocked, that the right calming soundtrack of woodwinds and nature sounds is playing softly, and he handles the taxes, the schedules and just about anything else needed. But on Tuesday evening, not long after 5 p.m., Shan’s mother was on the phone with an order, not a request.
Lock the door. Lock the door right now, she said, an unexpected command at a business trying to recover the 30 to 40 percent of sales lost during the pandemic. There had been a shooting, she explained, at an Asian-owned spa outside Atlanta. The gunman was on the loose.
As the evening wore on, the calls from friends and employees started. Was Shan OK? Should workers on the schedule for tomorrow come in? Was it safe? That and news coverage are how Shan learned that more spas—two that are just a nine-minute drive from Ponce and not far from the family’s second spa—had also been attacked and a total of eight people killed. Six of the dead were, like Shan, Asian.
