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.
The shooter, identified by authorities as 30-year-old Patrick Joseph White, “died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound,” the bureau’s director, Chris Hosey, said Tuesday at a news conference.
“Evidence in this event indicates that the shooter had recently verbalized thoughts of suicide, which even led to law enforcement being contacted several weeks prior to the incident,” Hosey said, flanked by other officials.
Hosey added that White fired nearly 200 rounds of ammunition at the headquarters, and that authorities recovered five guns and “over 500 shell casings” from the scene.
The five weapons belonged to White’s father and were securely stored before the shooter “forced his way into” the safe that contained them, Hosey added.
He also said that authorities had recovered “written documentation that expressed the shooter’s discontent with the COVID-19 vaccinations” from White’s home.
White’s father called 911 trying to get in touch with Dekalb County police officer, according to a recording released by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday. The officer had been involved “with some problems” the family had with their adult son last summer, White’s father told the operator.
“And I’m very worried that he might have been involved in this shooting today,” White’s father said.
White’s father said he left messages with “detailed information” to authorities, but no one had called them back.
“I just, I don’t know if, if he was involved,” he said. “I need some help.”
A neighbor of White’s previously told NBC News that White had expressed anti-vaccine sentiments to her on multiple occasions. It was also previously reported that White blamed the Covid-19 vaccine for making him depressed and suicidal.
Responding officer David Rose of the DeKalb County Police Department was the sole person killed in the shooting. Rose, a 33-year-old father of two, graduated from the department’s police academy in March. No civilians were injured in the shooting.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. visited the CDC headquarters in Atlanta on Monday. Kennedy said he met with Rose’s wife in private, walked through the damage to the building, and met with local police during his visit.
Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic who has denounced the Covid-19 vaccines, has been rebuked in recent days by former CDC employees who have been laid off in mass government staffing cuts in recent months.
Fired But Fighting, a group that describes itself as “a coalition of fired HHS employees and allies,” said in a statement last week that he “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.”
“We don’t need thoughts and prayers,” the group said. “We need an administration that does not villainize federal workers who are just trying to do their job. We need a Health and Human Services Secretary who does not promote misinformation about science and vaccines.”
The shooting at the CDC headquarters came after a slew of high-profile shootings across the country in recent weeks.
Two weeks ago, a gunman entered a high-rise office building in midtown Manhattan, killing three civilians and a police officer before dying by suicide. Two days before the shooting at the CDC headquarters, an active-duty soldier shot up Fort Stewart in Georgia, wounding five service members. And on Monday, three people — including a child — were killed outside a Target store in Austin.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also call the network, previously known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, at 800-273-8255, text HOME to 741741 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional resources.
