COVID Vaccine Suspected of Contributing to Suicidal Thoughts in CDC Shooter
A Georgia man who opened fire on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters had blamed the COVID-19 vaccine for making him depressed and suicidal, a law enforcement official said. 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.
The suspect, Patrick Joseph White, was identified as the shooter. His father contacted police and identified him as the possible shooter, saying his son had been upset over the death of his dog and had also become fixated on the COVID-19 vaccine.
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.
A voicemail left at a phone number listed publicly for White's family wasn't returned Saturday.
“We are deeply saddened by the tragic shooting at CDC’s Atlanta campus that took the life of officer David Rose,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., said Saturday. “No one should face violence while working to protect the health of others.”
Kennedy's expressions of solidarity were rejected by some who called for his resignation, saying he was responsible for the villainization of CDC's workforce through his continuous lies about science and vaccine safety.
Some laid-off CDC employees said Kennedy should resign. They claimed that under Kennedy, CDC has laid off nearly 2,000 employees and that Trump proposes cutting the agency’s budget in half next year, moving some CDC functions into a new Administration for a Healthy America.
Opponents of COVID-19 vaccines have accused officials' rhetoric of contributing to suicidal thoughts in the CDC shooter. 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. "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 neighbor of White told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that White spoke with 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."But Hoalst said she never believed White would be violent: “I had no idea he thought he would take it out on the CDC.”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.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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