The man who opened fire at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters last week, killing a police officer, died by suicide, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said Tuesday.
Authorities identified the shooter as 30-year-old Patrick Joseph White, who “died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound,” GBI Director Chris Hosey said at a news conference. Hosey stated that White had recently expressed suicidal thoughts, prompting law enforcement contact several weeks before the incident.
Hosey said White fired nearly 200 rounds at the CDC headquarters. Investigators recovered five guns and more than 500 shell casings from the scene. The weapons belonged to White’s father and were securely stored before the shooter forced his way into the safe containing them.
Officials also found written material at White’s home expressing his opposition to COVID-19 vaccinations.
According to a 911 call released by the GBI, White’s father tried to reach a DeKalb County police officer familiar with past issues involving his son. “And I’m very worried that he might have been involved in this shooting today,” he told the operator, adding that he had left detailed messages for authorities without receiving a response.
A neighbor previously told NBC News that White had shared anti-vaccine views with her multiple times. Reports indicated that he blamed the COVID-19 vaccine for causing his depression and suicidal thoughts.
Responding officer David Rose, 33, of the DeKalb County Police Department, was the only person killed in the shooting. Rose, a father of two, had graduated from the department’s police academy in March. No civilians were injured.
On Monday, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. visited the CDC headquarters in Atlanta. Kennedy met privately with Rose’s wife, toured the damage, and met with local police. Kennedy, a known vaccine skeptic, has faced criticism from former CDC employees affected by recent mass staffing cuts.
The group Fired But Fighting, describing itself as “a coalition of fired HHS employees and allies,” said Kennedy “is directly responsible for the villainization of CDC’s workforce through his continuous lies about science and vaccine safety, which have fueled a climate of hostility and mistrust.” The group called for leadership that would not promote misinformation.
The CDC shooting followed several high-profile incidents nationwide. Two weeks earlier, a gunman killed three civilians and a police officer in a Manhattan high-rise before dying by suicide. Two days before the CDC attack, an active-duty soldier shot five service members at Fort Stewart in Georgia. On Monday, three people, including a child, were killed outside a Target store in Austin.
