Nearly 200 rounds shot at CDC headquarters

Shortly before 5:00 p.m. on Friday, 30-year-old Patrick Joseph White shot at four different CDC, also known as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, buildings from the CVS drugstore across from the CDC headquarters in Atlanta. Many public health workers are rattled and believe that this act of violence is caused by rampant misinformation surrounding vaccines.

Mass law enforcement response came in response to a 911 call about an active shooter. Roughly 200 rounds impacted the CDC buildings and damaged glass. No CDC employees or civilians were harmed. According to Chris Hosey, the agency director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, 500 shell casings were recovered from the area.

At the scene, Law enforcement found Patrick dead on the 2nd floor of the drugstore, where he had died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Officers also recovered five guns at the scenes, including rifles, a shotgun, and a handgun, according to Hosey. All of the guns belonged to his father, which the shooter had stolen from his father’s secure safe.

Investigators identified the shooter as Patrick Joseph White, a 30-year-old man from Kennesaw, Ga, where he lived with his parents. Nacy Hoalst, one of the shooter’s neighbors, described Patrick as a helpful, quiet man who would help the community by walking dogs, trimming hedges, and mowing lawns. However, he had recently become very “unsettled” and discontent with vaccines. Patrick also had suicidal tendencies, with his father recently reporting Patrick as suicidal to law enforcement before the attack. According to NBC News, an anonymous neighbor of the suspect who claimed to know Patrick very well had said that Patrick had expressed anti-vaccine sentiments multiple times, and that he believed the COVID-19 vaccine had made him ill.

Officer David Rose, an officer of the DeKalb County Police Department, a 33-year-old who had been on the job for less than a year, was killed in the attack. Officer Rose was one of the first to respond to the shooting, where he was shot and seriously injured, and rushed to Emory University Hospital. He was later pronounced dead, leaving behind his wife, a 6-year-old daughter, and their 1-year-old son. His wife, whom he had known since high school, is expecting another child.

Scientists and public health experts say that this shooting was part of a pattern of threats and violence against health care workers. Misinformation and conspiracy theories about vaccines have circulated, although the COVID-19 vaccines are safe for most Americans. Just last week, nearly $500 million in grants and contracts for developing mRNA vaccines were canceled, with many scientists seeing mRNA vaccines as the best way to protect people during a pandemic. “Public health is being vilified by the current administration,” said Dr. Ina Park, an expert in sexually transmitted diseases at the University of California, San Francisco.

This shooting was a tragic scene that caused the untimely death of a beloved family member and a dutiful police officer, with the reasoning behind the attack appearing to be from a demonization of vaccines and the CDC’s workforce through hostility and mistrust fueled by misinformation about science and the vaccine.