What We Know About the C.D.C. Shooting in Atlanta

A shooting at the Atlanta headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention killed a police officer and rattled the community of public health workers, who said the attack was a manifestation of rampant misinformation surrounding vaccines.

A 30-year-old man who believed the Covid-19 vaccine had made him ill opened fire at C.D.C. buildings on Friday, according to the police. A young DeKalb County police officer was killed in the attack, and the gunman also died. On Saturday, investigators from local, state and federal law enforcement agencies were working to piece together the details and the circumstances that precipitated the attack.

The shooting came after years of conspiracy theories about vaccines and escalating political hostility toward the C.D.C., which some federal officials have sought to blame for lockdowns and vaccine mandates during the coronavirus pandemic.

What happened in the attack?

Shortly before 5 p.m. on Friday, the police in Atlanta received a 911 call about an active shooter at a CVS drugstore across the street from the C.D.C. headquarters on Clifton Road, near the Emory University campus and Emory University Hospital.

Dozens of bullets struck the exterior of at least four C.D.C. buildings, damaging windows and pitting the structures’ sleek glass facade. No C.D.C. employees or civilians were injured.

Law enforcement officials said they found the gunman dead on the second floor of the drugstore. It was not clear whether he was killed by a shot fired by law enforcement or by a self-inflicted wound.

At the scene, officers recovered five guns, including four long guns, according to a preliminary internal report from the Justice Department that was reviewed by The New York Times. Some, if not all, of the guns belonged to the suspect’s father, according to the report.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health and human services secretary, lamented the attack in a statement on Saturday. “No one should face violence while working to protect the health of others,” he said.

Who was the suspect?

Investigators identified the suspect as Patrick Joseph White, a 30-year-old from Kennesaw, Ga., about 30 miles from the C.D.C. campus.

Mr. White lived with his parents in Kennesaw. Nancy Hoalst, a neighbor, described him as a helpful, quiet man who picked up odd jobs around the community like walking dogs, trimming hedges and mowing lawns. But he had recently become “unsettled” and fixated on vaccines, said Ms. Hoalst.

In a staff meeting Saturday, C.D.C. officials said that Mr. White was “very disturbed.” One law enforcement official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation, said Mr. White’s father had reported his son as suicidal to law enforcement before the attack on Friday.

Though officials have not yet ascribed an exact motive, the C.D.C.’s acting chief operating officer, Christa Capozzola, said the shooting “was a targeted attack on C.D.C. related to Covid” in an email addressed to C.D.C. employees on Saturday. Law enforcement officials also said that the suspect believed that the coronavirus vaccine had caused his physical ailments.

What do we know about the officer who was killed?

Officer David Rose of the DeKalb County Police Department, a 33-year-old rookie who had been on the job for less than a year, was killed in the attack. He had lived in Georgia for much of his life after moving from Massachusetts as a child with his mother, Deveane Atkinson.

Before joining the police force, Officer Rose served in the Marines and then worked for the sheriff’s office, often supervising inmates in local jails, Ms. Atkinson said. But she said Officer Rose told his family last year that he wanted a change.

“He said, ‘Ma, I feel like I’m in jail,’” Ms. Atkinson recalled. “He wanted to be more of a help to people.”

His family worried about the dangers he would face as a police officer and urged him to reconsider. But he carried on, and completed the police force’s basic training in March.

On Friday, Officer Rose was among the first to respond to the shooting. He was seriously injured and rushed to Emory University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, according to officials.

Officer Rose is survived by his wife and their 1-year-old son, as well as his 6-year-old daughter from a previous relationship. His wife, whom he had known since high school, is expecting another child.

The shooting followed years of anger toward the C.D.C.

Some scientists and public health experts said Friday’s attack was the latest in a pattern of threats and violence against health care workers. Inside the C.D.C., which is widely considered a global leader in public health, some employees expressed frustration and distress on a call on Saturday, according to a recording of the call obtained by The Times.

On the call, one C.D.C. employee asked the agency’s director, Susan Monarez, “Are you able to speak to the misinformation, the disinformation that caused this issue?”

The misinformation and conspiracy theories about vaccines have circulated despite research that has proved that Covid-19 vaccines are safe for most Americans. Side effects are rare, and the vaccinations are believed to have prevented millions of deaths and hospitalizations.

Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, some vaccine skeptics, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now the health and human services secretary, have sought to blame the C.D.C. for a botched response to the outbreak of the virus.

Before joining the Trump administration, Mr. Kennedy described the C.D.C. as a “cesspool of corruption” and accused the agency of covering up harmful side effects of vaccines, particularly in children. In 2021, he called Covid shots the “deadliest vaccine ever made.”

Last week, Mr. Kennedy canceled nearly $500 million in grants and contracts for developing mRNA vaccines, which many scientists see as the best way to protect people during a pandemic.

“Public health is being vilified by the current administration,” said Dr. Ina Park, a n expert in sexually transmitted diseases at the University of California, San Francisco.

Christina Morales, Sean Keenan, Eduardo Medina, Andy Newman, Glenn Thrush and Rick Rojas contributed reporting.