A bullet hole in the door of a CVS pharmacy close to where police say a man shot at the headquarters of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.Jeff Amy/The Associated Press
Investigators identified a 30-year-old man from suburban Atlanta on Saturday as the person who opened fire on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, killing a police officer and spreading panic through the health agency and nearby Emory University.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said the shooter was Patrick Joseph White of Kennesaw, Georgia. DeKalb County Police Officer David Rose was mortally wounded Friday while responding. No one else was hit, although police said four people reported to emergency rooms with symptoms of anxiety. Many CDC employees sought cover in their offices as bullets strafed the agency’s headquarters.
Police said a suspected shooter and a police officer are dead after law enforcement responded to an active shooter near the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Emory University.
The Associated Press
Police say White opened fire at the campus from across the street, leaving gaping bullet holes in windows and littering the sidewalk outside a CVS pharmacy with bullet casings. The attack prompted a massive law enforcement response to one of the nation’s most prominent public health institutions.
A law enforcement official told The Associated Press that the shooter had been turned away by guards when he tried to gain access to the campus, and then drove to a spot near the pharmacy and started firing. He was armed with a long gun and authorities recovered at least three other firearms at the scene, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation.
The suspect’s father reached out to authorities and identified his son as the possible shooter, the law enforcement official said. The father told authorities that his son had been upset over the death of his dog and seemed depressed because of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Flowers are placed below a handwritten sign outside the CDC Global Headquarters on Saturday. David Rose, 33, was killed while responding to Friday’s shooting.Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images
At least four CDC buildings were hit, Director Susan Monarez said in a post on X, and dozens of impacts were visible from outside the campus. Images shared by employees showed bullet-pocked windows in offices where thousands of scientists and staff work on critical disease research.
“We are deeply saddened by the tragic shooting at CDC’s Atlanta campus that took the life of officer David Rose,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said Saturday. “We know how shaken our public health colleagues feel today. No one should face violence while working to protect the health of others,” his statement said.
Some laid-off employees rejected the expressions of solidarity Kennedy made in a “Dear colleagues” email, and called for his resignation.
“Kennedy is directly responsible for the villainization of CDC’s workforce through his continuous lies about science and vaccine safety, which have fueled a climate of hostility and mistrust,” Fired but Fighting said.
The group also called for the resignation of Russell Vought, pointing to a video recorded before Trump appointed him Office of Management and Budget director with orders to dismantle much of the federal government.
“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” Vought said in the video, obtained by ProPublica and the research group Documented. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work, because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down … We want to put them in trauma.”
A request for comment from Vought’s agency was not immediately returned.
Former CDC employees affected by recent layoffs say Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. spread rhetoric that created mistrust toward the organization.Mark Schiefelbein/The Associated Press
Hundreds of CDC staffers sheltered in place during the shooting and many couldn’t leave for hours afterward on Friday as investigators interviewed witnesses and gathered evidence. The staff was encouraged to work from home Monday or take leave.
CDC workers already faced uncertain futures due to funding cuts, layoffs and political disputes over their agency’s mission. “Save the CDC” signs are common in some Atlanta-area neighbourhoods, and a group of laid-off employees has been demanding action from elected officials to push back against the Trump administration’s cuts.
This shooting was the “physical embodiment of the narrative that has taken over, attacking science, and attacking our federal workers,” said Sarah Boim, a former CDC communications staffer who was fired this year during wave of terminations.
“It’s devastating,” said Boim. “When I saw the picture of those windows having been struck by bullets I really lost it,” she said, her voice cracking.
A voicemail left at a phone number listed for White’s family in public records was not immediately returned Saturday morning.
Prior to the shooting, the CDC was facing funding cuts, layoffs and political attacks.Megan Varner/Reuters
A neighbour of White told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that White spoke with her multiple times about his distrust of COVID-19 vaccines.
Nancy Hoalst, who lives in same cul-de-sac as White’s family, said he “seemed like a good guy” while doing yard work and walking dogs for neighbours, but would bring up vaccines even in unrelated conversations.
“He was very unsettled and he very deeply believed that vaccines hurt him and were hurting other people.” Hoalst told the Atlanta newspaper. “He emphatically believed that.”
But Hoalst said she never believed White would be violent: “I had no idea he thought he would take it out on the CDC.”
The gunman died at the scene, Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said Friday, adding: “we do not know at this time whether that was from officers or if it was self-inflicted.”
He had been armed with a long gun, and authorities recovered three other firearms at the scene, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.
Flowers are placed below a handwritten sign outside the CDC Global Headquarters on Saturday. David Rose, 33, was killed while responding to Friday’s shooting.Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images
Rose, 33, was a former Marine who served in Afghanistan, graduated from the police academy in March and “quickly earned the respect of his colleagues for his dedication, courage and professionalism,” DeKalb County said.
“This evening, there is a wife without a husband. There are three children, one unborn, without a father,” DeKalb County CEO Lorraine Cochran-Johnson said.
Outside the complex that includes four floors of apartments above the CVS store, some people came Saturday to witness what had happened.
Sam Atkins, who lives in Stone Mountain, said gun violence feels like “a fact of life” now: “This is an everyday thing that happens here in Georgia.”
The newly-confirmed Monarez hailed the police response and called off in-person work on Monday, telling staff in a Friday email that the shooting brought “fear, anger and worry to all of us.”