By JEFF AMY and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER Associated Press
ATLANTA (AP) — A Georgia man who opened fire on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters, shooting dozens of rounds into the sprawling complex and killing a police officer, had blamed the COVID-19 vaccine for making him depressed and suicidal, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press on Saturday.
The 30-year-old shooter also tried to get into the CDC’s headquarters in Atlanta but was stopped by guards before driving to a pharmacy across the street and opening fire late Friday afternoon, the official said. He was armed with five guns, including at least one long gun, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the investigation.
DeKalb County Police Officer David Rose was mortally wounded while responding.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., whose skepticism of vaccines has been a cornerstone of his career, voiced support for CDC employees Saturday. But some laid-off CDC employees said Kennedy shares responsibility for the violence and should resign.
CDC shooter identified
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation named Patrick Joseph White as the shooter, but authorities haven’t said whether he was killed by police or killed himself.
The suspect’s father contacted police and identified his son as the possible shooter, the law enforcement official told AP. The father said his son had been upset over the death of the son’s dog, and he had also become fixated on the COVID-19 vaccine, according to the official. The family lives in Kennesaw, Georgia, an Atlanta suburb about 25 miles (40 kilometers) northwest of CDC headquarters.
A voicemail left at a phone number listed publicly for White’s family wasn’t returned Saturday.
Employees at the CDC are shaken
The shooting left gaping bullet holes in windows across the CDC campus, where thousands work on critical disease research. Employees huddled under lockdown for hours while investigators gathered evidence. Staff was encouraged to work from home Monday or take leave.
At least four CDC buildings were hit, Director Susan Monarez said on X.
Sam Atkins, who lives in Stone Mountain, said outside the CVS pharmacy on Saturday that gun violence feels like “a fact of life” now. “This is an everyday thing that happens here in Georgia.”
Kennedy reaches out to staff
“We are deeply saddened by the tragic shooting at CDC’s Atlanta campus that took the life of officer David Rose,” Kennedy 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.”
Some 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,” said Fired But Fighting, a group of laid-off employees opposing changes to the CDC by President Donald Trump’s administration.
Under Kennedy, CDC has laid off nearly 2,000 employees. Trump proposes cutting the agency’s budget in half next year, moving some CDC functions into a new Administration for a Healthy America. Kennedy has a history as a leader in the anti-vaccine movement, but he reached new prominence by spreading distrust of COVID-19 vaccines. For example, he called it “criminal medical malpractice” to give COVID-19 vaccines to children.
Kennedy parlayed that attention into a presidential bid and endorsement of Trump, leading to Trump naming him secretary. Kennedy continues to undercut the scientific consensus for vaccines, ordering $500 million cut from vaccine development funding on Tuesday.
Opponents say officials’ rhetoric contributed
Fired But Fighting also called for the resignation of Russell Vought, noting 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.”
A request for comment from Vought’s agency wasn’t returned.
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 a wave of terminations.
A distrust of COVID-19 vaccines
A neighbor 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 on the same street as White’s family, said he seemed like a “good guy” while doing yard work and walking dogs for neighbors, but he 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.”
Slain officer leaves wife and 3 kids
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.
Growing security concerns
Senior CDC leadership told some staff Saturday that they would do a full security assessment following the shooting, according to a conference call recording obtained by the AP.
One staffer said people felt like “sitting ducks” Friday. Another asked whether administrators had spoken with Kennedy and if they could speak to “the misinformation, the disinformation” that “caused this issue.”
It is clear CDC leaders fear employees could continue to be targeted. In a Saturday email obtained by the AP, CDC’s security office asked employees to scrape old CDC parking decals off their vehicles. The office said decals haven’t been required for some time.
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Richer reported from Washington, D.C. Associated Press writer Anthony Izaguirre contributed from Albany, New York.