From Sacramento to Salt Lake City to Philadelphia, thousands gathered this weekend at vigils across the country with signs, candles, portraits and flowers grieving the eight victims of Tuesday's shootings in Atlanta and crying out against anti-Asian racism.

Federal investigators have so far not found evidence that clears the high bar for federal hate crime charges against a man who has been accused of killing eight people at three Atlanta-area massage businesses, two law enforcement officials told The Associated Press on Friday.

Seven of the eight people killed were women; six were of Asian descent. The crime has stitched together stigmas about race, gender, migrant work and sex work.

A moment from the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office press conference on Wednesday quickly went viral: Jay Baker, a spokesperson for the police department handling the investigation into the horrific Atlanta spa murders, said that suspect Robert Aaron Long was having a bad day.

"He was pretty much fed up, kind of at the end of his rope, and yesterday was a really bad day for him and this is what he did," said Baker.

The eight people who died in a shooting spree by a 21-year-old gunman in Georgia this week have been identified by police and Fulton County officials.

Why it matters: The fact that six of the eight victims are Asian women has left Asians and Pacific Islanders across America fearful and alarmed.

Here is what we know about the victims so far:

The Fulton County Medical Examiner on Friday released the names of the other four victims: Soon C. Park, 74; Hyun J. Grant, 51; Suncha Kim, 69; and Yong A. Yue, 63.

President Biden’s trip to Atlanta on Friday, originally planned as part of his Covid-19 stimulus promotional tour, will take on a different tone after shootings in the region this week left eight dead, including six women of Asian descent.

Prominent Asian American lawmakers, scholars and advocates, including actor and producer Daniel Dae Kim, testified Thursday on the rise in hate crimes and discrimination against Asian Americans before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.

The hearing followed a string of hate crimes against Asian Americans, as well as three shootings at Atlanta-area spas on Tuesday in which eight people were killed. Six of the victims were Asian women.

President Biden and Vice President Harris plan to travel to Atlanta on Friday, where they will meet with leaders of the city's Asian American community in the aftermath of a deadly shooting spree there this week that left eight people dead, including six women of Asian descent.

Meanwhile, Biden issued a proclamation for U.S. flags on federal buildings to be lowered to half-staff through sunset Monday to mark the massacre in Georgia.

On Tuesday, a gunman killed eight people at three different spas in Atlanta—Young’s Asian Massage, Gold Spa, and Aromatherapy Spa. Six of the eight victims were Asian women, making it difficult not to connect the killings to the anti-Asian attacks that have consumed the country over the past year due in part to racist rhetoric around the coronavirus pandemic. Asian women and elders have suffered the brunt of the violence. Local officials charged Robert Aaron Long, a 21-year-old white man, with four counts of murder and one count of assault on Wednesday, and he is the main suspect.

Prominent Asian American lawmakers, scholars and advocates, including actor and producer Daniel Dae Kim, are testifying Thursday on the rise in hate crimes and discrimination against Asian Americans before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.

The hearing follows a string of hate crimes against Asian Americans, as well as three shootings at Atlanta-area spas on Tuesday in which eight people were killed. Six of the victims were Asian women.