Details on the shooting

Police said they first received a call about shots being fired around 4:50 p.m. on Friday. At least 25 shots were heard in the area, according to a video recorded by a CDC employee reviewed by the Washington Post.

According to an employee who was on the 12th floor of building 24 on the campus, rapid-fire shots were heard around 4:55 p.m. Initially, the employee said some people thought the shots were noise from construction. Moments later, the building was placed on lockdown.

On Saturday, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) identified 30-year-old Patrick Joseph White as the suspected gunman in the shooting. GBI also said that DeKalb County police officer David Rose was shot and killed. DeKalb interim police chief Greg Padrick said that Rose "gave his life with a commitment to serve others."

GBI said that White was found on the second floor of a CVS drugstore at Emory Point, an apartment and retail complex across the street from CDC's Roybal Campus. White died at the scene after being struck by gunfire; however, authorities said it was unclear whether the gunfire was from officers or was self-inflicted.

A law enforcement official who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity said that White attempted to get into CDC's headquarters but was stopped by guards before driving to the CVS and opening fire. White was armed with five guns, including at least one long gun, the official told the AP.

The official also said that White had blamed the COVID-19 vaccine for making him depressed and suicidal. 

White's father contacted police and identified his son as the potential shooter. The father said his son had become fixated on the COVID-19 vaccine and was upset over the death of his dog.

Nancy Hoalst, a neighbor of White's, spoke to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and said the White had spoken to her multiple times about his distrust of COVID-19 vaccines.

"He was very unsettled, and he very deeply believed that vaccines hurt him and were hurting other people," Hoalst said. "He emphatically believed that."

Reaction

In a call with employees at the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases on Saturday, CDC Director Susan Monarez expressed her support for the agency's mission amid reports of the gunman's fixation on COVID-19 vaccines.

"While we pulled you all together today because of my concern for you, the impact of what we were seeing in the media related to this person's potential motivation, I want to make sure that you understand how supportive I am of you," Monarez said according to a partial recording of the call obtained by the Post. "I wanted to address you directly to make sure that you had an opportunity to share your concerns directly."

"The intersection of disinformation, conspiracy theories and political violence is getting scarier by the day," said Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist at Bellevue Hospital Center. "I'm very worried about how this is now going beyond defunding of infectious diseases and public health to political violence against the people working in those fields."

Former Surgeon General Jerome Adams in an op-ed piece for STAT said the CDC shooting "is not an isolated event. It is a dire reflection of ever-escalating threats public health workers face in a climate increasingly shaped by misinformation, politicization, and inflammatory rhetoric."

"Worse still, it took more than 18 hours for [HHS] Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to issue a public statement condemning the violent act," Adams added. "In that time, I personally heard directly from CDC employees — already demoralized by [Department of Government Efficiency]-led budget and staffing cuts — who felt abandoned by the very leadership meant to defend them."

Adams said that the Trump administration needs to "forcefully and unequivocally condemn rhetoric that vilifies public health professionals. Public trust starts with leaders affirming the value of science-based public health — and the people behind it."

"The CDC shooting should be a wake-up call — not just for policymakers, but for all of us," Adams wrote. "It's time to reject the rhetoric that dehumanizes those trying to keep us safe and take real steps to protect them."