Employees at the U.S. Highest Health Agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, were caught up when bullets smashed an office window on Friday and rang right above a cubicle wall.
Crossing the street from the CDC campus, shooters, presumably motivated by hatred for the vaccine, fired fire at the agency building, causing panic in the upscale Atlanta area and the vast open-access campus of Emory University, adjacent to it.
“Active shooter at Emory Atlanta Campus at Emory Point CVS. Run, hide, fight. Avoid areas. Continue shelter.
One first responder, DeCalb County Police Officer David Rose, was killed. He was two married fathers, the other father, and Rose would have been working for a year next month.
Filming began just before 5pm at Emory Point CVS Drugstore on Clifton Road, directly from the CDC’s main entrance.
On the way home, parents picking up their children from residents, students and daycare are caught up in a tense lockdown that stretched over the night.
When officers responded, police sirens were blown across the area.
The gunman was found dead on the second floor of the CVS store. He was hit by the shooting, but police were unable to say whether it came from the officer or the gunman himself.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation identified Patrick Joseph White, 30, a resident of the Atlanta suburb of Kennesaw, as the shooter on Saturday. Investigations are underway that led to the shooting.
At the CDC office, employees said the situation could have been much worse.
Photos viewed by CNN, taken from inside one CDC building, depict a bullet hole in a window and a crushed glass in the floor. The image shows a round of ammunition flew right above the office cubicle where the employee is sitting.
“It’s a miracle that no one was killed here,” a CDC employee told CNN.
Authorities have not confirmed their motivation, but sources told CNN that the shooter may have targeted the CDC more than health concerns of individuals who condemned the Covid-19 vaccine.
This is what we know.
After talking to the suspect’s family, police are operating under the hypothesis that they believed he was ill or that he believed he was ill and blamed the illness with the Covid-19 vaccine, law enforcement officials told CNN.
One of the world’s leading health organizations, the CDC is tasked with protecting the health of Americans. But it fired during the Second Trump administration as conspiracy theory continues to plague vaccines that are believed to have stopped the spread of the global pandemic.
The shooting came the same week that US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – announcing the $5 billion cancellation of investments in the MRNA Project, a longtime Covid vaccination critic with a history of spreading vaccine misinformation.
HHS said it would cancel federal funding for nearly 20 mRNA vaccine projects.
On social media, Kennedy reposted a statement from the CDC director regarding the shooting, but he has not commented independently on the incident.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said the suspected gunman is “a known person who may have some interest in certain things that cannot be confidently repeated until the investigation is complete.”
CDC director Susan Monares said the shooter fired at at least four buildings at the X.
Monales informed CDC staff via email that it would operate remotely on Monday while the “security assessment” was being conducted. Employee support personnel are now available to workers, she said.
The gunman was wearing what looked like a surgical mask and was armed with two backpacks filled with two handguns, a rifle, a shotgun and ammunition, according to law enforcement.
When officers stood up, the gunman was firing at the CDC complex. The shooter directed his purpose from the CDC complex to executives, a law enforcement source told CNN’s Ryan Young.
Rose, 33, was shot and killed and later died at Emory University Hospital.
Hayes Palsa, 17, saw Rose fighting for a life in the hospital.
Palsa left Emory University Hospital and was waiting for the bus when she received an emergency warning saying over the phone, “Run, hide, fight.”
“We didn’t know exactly what was going on,” he told CNN affiliate WSB. “I think the officer’s car was pulled into the ER slot and the officer was shot.”
“It’s scary to see him… They were doing CPR on him and they took him inside.”
Palsa ran through the hospital and saw staff compressing their chests on the officers and said, “I prayed for him right away.”
“He has committed to serving the community,” Interim Police Chief Greg Padric said of Rose. “At this point we are seeking community prayers for his family, his friends, his loved ones, and for the entire DeKalb County Police Department.”
FBI director Kash Patel said Rose was the “ultimate sacrifice” hero.
“Pray for the family, friends and colleagues of this hero who acted quickly to protect others and make the ultimate sacrifice,” Patel said in a post on X.
Chaos touched many people, including Randy Gold, who had left the elevator at Emory Hospital and tumbled into the exit with his father.
At that point, Gold told CNN, and no one knew where it was going, but they all went into shelter mode.
“We did a bit of a duck,” he said as he was protecting 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 locked down and what they learned while watching CNN where the incident occurred.
Around campus, people were trying to understand what was going on.
Casey Cooksey, an employee of the IT department at Emory University, heard of “a lot of gunfights” from CNN affiliate WXIA and described the scene as “a total horror for everyone.”
“We didn’t know where it came from, but it was pretty close. We thought it might be in our building.”
“It was just a rapid fire. It was a minute to hear the siren. It was shot loudly.”
The road near Emory Point CVS, where the active shooters were located, was “like a ghost town,” and police stopped vehicles from approaching, Christine Coles told CNN Affiliate WSB.
She was worried about her 1.5 year old son at a daycare center across the CVS, so she drove as much as she could before police stopped her and walked about a mile to get in.
Coles said her wife went to pick up her son, but because of the lockdown situation they were separated in different classrooms.
“I’m trying to get to them as soon as possible,” Coles said.
“It tells a lot of what we need to do to keep our kids safe. This is ridiculous.”
Atlanta Mayor Dickens said there were 92 children at daycare on the CDC campus, and they were all safe.
The violent episodes at the Federal Health Agency have added a disturbing new chapter to what was a turbulent era for the CDC and its staff.
Dickens said that CDC employees have “did something really tough over the past year.”
“My heart is directed towards you,” the mayor said.
“We’re with you. We’re standing with you. We’re doing everything we can to make sure we bring determination to the situation.”
He referenced “uncertainty” regarding the employment of CDC staff following the massive workforce cuts at federal health agencies.
The agency has lost nearly a quarter of its staff since January. The 2026 Trump administration’s proposed budget would cut institutional funds by more than half.
Under the proposed reorganization, the CDC will lose additional programs. Some people will be transferred to a new administration for a healthy America, while others such as the National Chronic Diseases and Health Promotion Center will be completely eliminated.
CNN’s Brenda Goodman contributed to this report.
