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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
Gunman in CDC shooting identified as staffers reel from attack on
heavily scrutinized agency
By Kathleen Magramo, Ray Sanchez, Brenda Goodman, Meg Tirrell, CNN
Updated:
3:41 PM EDT, Sat August 9, 2025
Source: CNN
Employees at the top US public health agency, the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, were winding down their Friday when bullets
smashed through their office windows, whizzing just over their cubicle
walls. Inside the buildings, CDC employees felt like “sitting
ducks,” some would later say in a meeting.
Across the street from the CDC campus, a gunman — possibly motivated
by a hatred of vaccines — had opened fire on the agency’s
buildings, bringing panic to the upscale Atlanta neighborhood and the
sprawling, open-access campus of Emory University adjacent to it.
“Active shooter on Emory Atlanta Campus at Emory Point CVS. RUN,
HIDE, FIGHT. Avoid the area. Continue shelter in place. Police on
scene,” said a statement from the university.
One first responder, DeKalb County Police Officer David Rose, was
killed. A married father of two, with another on the way, Rose would
have made one year on the job next month.
The shooting began just before 5 p.m. at the Emory Point CVS drugstore
on Clifton Road, directly across from the main entrance to the CDC.
Residents and students on their way home and parents picking up
children from day care were caught in a tense lockdown that stretched
into the night.
Police sirens blared across the area as officers responded.
The gunman was found dead on the second floor of the CVS store. He was
struck by gunfire, but police could not say if it came from officers or
the gunman himself.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation on Saturday identified Patrick
Joseph White, 30, a resident of the Atlanta suburb Kennesaw, as the
shooter. The investigation into what led to the shooting is ongoing.
In the CDC offices, employees said the situation could have been much
worse.
Photos viewed by CNN taken from inside one CDC building depict bullet
holes in windows and shattered glass on the floor. The images show that
rounds of ammunition flew just above a line of office cubicles where
employees sit.
“It’s a miracle no one was killed here,” one CDC employee told
CNN.
Authorities have not confirmed a motive, but sources told CNN the
shooter may have targeted the CDC over personal health concerns he
blamed on the Covid-19 vaccine.
Here’s what we know.
Why did the shooter allegedly target the CDC?
After speaking with family members of the suspect, police are operating
under the hypothesis he was either sick or believed he was sick and
blamed the illness on the Covid-19 vaccine, a law enforcement official
told CNN.
The CDC, one of the world’s leading health agencies, is tasked with
protecting the health of Americans. But it has come under fire during
the second Trump administration as conspiracy theories continue to
plague the vaccine credited with halting the spread of the global
pandemic.
The shooting occurred the same week US Health and Human Services
Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – a longtime critic of Covid
vaccinations, with a of spreading vaccine misinformation – the
cancellation of a half-billion dollars in investments in mRNA projects.
HHS said it would cancel federal funding for nearly two dozen mRNA
vaccine projects.
On social media, Kennedy on Saturday: “We are deeply saddened by the
tragic shooting at CDC’s Atlanta campus that took the life of officer
David Rose.”
Kennedy added “no one should face violence while working to protect
the health of others.”
“Public health workers show up every day with purpose — even in
moments of grief and uncertainty,” the health secretary said. “We
honor their service. We stand with them. And we remain united in our
mission to protect and improve the health of every American.”
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said the alleged shooter “is a known
person that may have some interest in certain things that I can’t
reiterate right now with any confidence until the investigation is
fully conducted.”
CDC Director Susan Monarez the shooter fired on at least four
buildings.
Monarez informed CDC staff via email that they will work remotely on
Monday while a “security assessment” is conducted. Employee
assistance personnel were made available to workers, she said.
The gunman was wearing what appeared to be a surgical mask and was
armed with two handguns, a rifle, a shotgun and two backpacks filled
with ammo, according to law enforcement sources.
How the officer was shot
The gunman was firing at the CDC complex when an officer pulled up. The
shooter turned his aim from the CDC complex to the officer, a law
enforcement source told CNN’s Ryan Young.
Rose, 33, was shot and later died at Emory University Hospital. His
mother was an ICU nurse at the same hospital for 17 years, according to
DeKalb County spokesperson Dionna Smith.
Hayes Parsa, 17, saw Rose fighting for his life in hospital.
Parsa was leaving the Emory University Hospital and waiting for a bus
when he got the emergency alert on his phone saying, “run, hide,
fight,” he told . A police car pulled up and he ran back inside the
hospital, where he witnessed staff performing chest compressons on the
officer. “I prayed for him immediately,” he told WSB.
Rose “was committed to serving the community,” interim Police Chief
Greg Padrick, said.
FBI Director Kash Patel said Rose was a hero who “made the ultimate
sacrifice.”
“Pray for the family, friends, and colleagues of this hero who acted
quickly to defend others and made the ultimate sacrifice,” Patel said
in a post on X.
Group of CDC employees felt like ‘sitting ducks,’ they told
leadership
In a large and hastily arranged Zoom call on Saturday, CDC leaders
addressed rattled staff and acknowledged the Friday evening attack was
targeted and deliberate.
“This was not stray bullets,” one leader acknowledged on the call,
sharing updates from the authorities. CNN obtained copies of staff
notes from the meeting, which were shared in a large employee group
chat.
There were at least 40 bullet holes counted in buildings 21 and 24, as
well as a few in a third building, 16. The buildings house much of the
non-lab work at CDC.
About 800 staff on the call, many of whom work in the agency’s
National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, were told
the attack was carried out by a single shooter who had been reaching
out for mental health assistance for weeks before the incident but had
not made any threats ahead of time, according to two sources who spoke
on the condition they not be named because they had not been authorized
to share details with reporters.
It’s unclear who the shooter was reaching out to.
In a question-and-answer portion of the call, staffers tearfully told
Monarez, the agency director, they felt like “sitting ducks.”
Leadership told staff on the call Saturday they might hear that their
work was targeted as a possible motivation for the shooter.
CDC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Debra Houry on the call acknowledged the
trauma of staffers, whether they were in the building or not, saying
leaders were “mad this happened.”
Monarez said CDC leaders have been in contact with the office of HHS
Secretary Kennedy, according to staff notes obtained by CNN.
Monarez was also asked what the agency planned to do to address
disinformation but agency leaders on the call did not directly respond.
Anxiety all over the Emory campus
The chaos touched many people including Randy Gold, who was leaving an
elevator at Emory Hospital and rolling to the exit with his father,
just discharged in a wheelchair, when they encountered doctors, nurses
and valet parkers running toward them and “screaming there was an
active shooter.”
At that point, Gold told CNN, nobody knew where that was happening, but
they all went into sheltering mode.
“We sort of ducked,” he said as he was sheltering along with five
or six people in the hospital’s radiology reading room. The only
information they had at that moment was that the entire hospital was in
lockdown, and what they learned while watching CNN as the incident
developed.
Around campus, people were also trying to get a sense of what was
happening. Police patrols on campus were increased over the weekend,
according to the university.
Casey Cooksey, an employee of Emory University’s IT Department, told
CNN affiliate WXIA, he heard “lots of gunfire” and described the
scene as “total fear for everybody.”
“We had no idea where it was coming from, but it was pretty close. We
thought it may be in our building.”
“It was just a bunch of rapid fire. It was a minute before we heard
any sirens. It was just a lot of loud shooting.”
Toddlers on lockdown at nearby day cares
Roads near the Emory Point CVS, where the active shooter was located,
were “like a ghost town,” and police stopped vehicles from driving
closer, Kristin Coles told.
Anxious for her one-and-a-half-year-old son who was at a day care
center across from the CVS, she drove as far as she could before police
stopped her and walked about a mile to get closer.
Coles said her wife went to pick their son up, but they were separated
in different classrooms due to the lockdown situation.
“I’m just trying to get to them as quickly as I can,” Coles said,
stressing she has never experienced anything like this before.
“It just speaks to a lot of what needs to be done to keep our kids
safe. This is ridiculous.”
There were also 92 children in a day care on the CDC campus, and all of
them were safe, said Atlanta Mayor Dickens.
Natalie Feagin, the executive director of the Clifton School, a day
care that serves CDC and Emory employees at two locations, told parents
in an email that staff had specifically trained for active shooter
scenarios and implemented a lockdown as soon as the shooting was
reported.
Day care staff quickly “secured doors, silenced phones, closed
blinds, and moved children into interior shelter spaces,” Feagin
wrote. “Teachers comforted and cared for the children, helping them
feel safe while we waited for updates from authorities.”
All children were safely united with their families by 11 p.m. local
time, according to the email. Following the shooting, Feagin met with
police “for an after-action discussion to further review our response
and identify areas of strength and growth moving forward,” she added.
Threat to CDC employees
The violent episode at the federal health agency has added an
unsettling new chapter to a turbulent period for the CDC and its staff.
Dickens said CDC employees have “had a tough go of it in the past
year.”
“My heart goes out to you,” the mayor said.
“We are with you. We stand with you, and we’re doing everything we
can to make sure that we bring resolve to the situation.”
He referenced the “uncertainty” around CDC staff’s employment
following massive workforce cuts at federal health agencies.
The agency has lost nearly a quarter of its staff since January. The
Trump administration’s proposed budget for the fiscal year 2026 would
slash the agency’s funding by more than half.
Under the proposed reorganization, the CDC would lose additional
programs. Some would be transferred to a new Administration for a
Healthy America, while others - such as the National Center for Chronic
Disease and Health Promotion - would be eliminated entirely.
CNN’s Zoe Sottile contributed to this report.
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