Palm Desert massage business holds blessing ceremony days after Atlanta-area killings - Desert Sun

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Gene Phillips and Cha Cha Hammond pray during a blessing ceremony at Oriental Thai Massage in Palm Desert Sunday, March 21, 2021. It followed a March 16 attack that left eight people dead at three Atlanta-area massage businesses.

(Photo: Colin Atagi/The Desert Sun)

A sense of peace and calm fell upon a therapeutic massage business in Palm Desert on Sunday as Buddhist monks performed a blessing ceremony at Oriental Thai Massage on San Pablo.

Six Buddhist monks participated in the ceremony in a tent directly outside the business as staff joined them in prayer.

Although the ceremony had been planned in advance, it especially resonated with its owner and staff Sundayin wake of last week's killings of eight people in a series of shootings at spas near Atlanta.

"I want good luck, and blessing my shop is for nothing bad to happen," owner Cha Cha Hammond said Sunday afternoon.

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Buddhist monks pray during a blessing ceremony at Oriental Thai Massage in Palm Desert Sunday, March 21, 2021. It followed a March 16 attack that left eight people dead at three Atlanta massage businesses.

(Photo: Colin Atagi/The Desert Sun)

Her business has been on San Pablo since 2019, although it's opened and closed since then due to construction from the street's recent renovation project and restrictions in place during the coronavirus pandemic. Most recently, it reopened about a month ago.

The business has never been impacted by violence; the only conflicts that have arisen have been when staff have had to remove customers who wrongly presumed they could acquire sexual services, said Hammond's husband, Gene Phillips.

He stressed his wife's business isn't a "massage parlor," a designation that can imply the business is a front for prostitution.

The suspect in last week's shootings was identified as Robert Aaron Long, 21, of Woodstock, Georgia. During a news conference following the killings, investigators said Long claimed he suffered from sex addiction and that may have played a role in the shootings.


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Don, a Buddhist monk from Wat Santi temple in Landers who doesn't use a last name, participated in Sunday's blessing and said using sex addiction as an excuse to kill people is "selfish thinking."

"Why do you blame anybody?" Don said.

Six of last week's victims were Asian women and investigators say they haven't determined if the slayings were racially motivated. Attacks against Asian Americans have surged across the country recently.

One in four Americans, including nearly half of Asian Americans, in recent weeks have seen someone blame Asian people for the coronavirus epidemic, a new USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll released Sunday found.

Desert Sun reporter Colin Atagi covers crime, public safety and road and highway safety. He can be reached at [email protected] or follow him at @tdscolinatagi. Support local news, subscribe to The Desert Sun.

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