Researchers say that the man who opened the fire at the head office of the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, where a police officer is killed, may have been against Covid vaccinations.
Officer David Rose, 33, who graduated from the Police Academy in March, died in the hospital after being injured. No citizens were injured.
Officials told us the media on Saturday that she investigated the theory that the suspect, Patrick Joseph White, 30, was sick, or thought he was sick from a Covid vaccine. White died in the incident.
The CDC, which follows disease outbreaks in the US, played a central role during the COVID Pandemie and was heavily criticized by vaccine sepeptics.
Officer Rose was a former marine who had served in Afghanistan.
Officer Lorran Cochran-Johnson Dekalb County said: “Tonight there is a woman without a husband. There are three children, one unborn, without a father.”
Media reports suggested that the father of the shooter had called the police on the day of the shooting, in the conviction that his son was suicidal.
A neighbor of White told the Atlanta Journal Constitution that the suspect had repeatedly told her that he distrusted Covid-19 vaccines.
Nancy Hoalst, who lives on the other side of the White family in the outskirts of the Atlanta of Kennesaw, said the newspaper: “He was very restless and he believed very deeply that vaccines hurt him and hurt other people. He emphatically believed that.”
Officer David Rose was a former navy [Reuters]
A neighbor who spoke with CBS, the American partner of the BBC, said that the suspect was very skinny and was determined that the Covid vaccine made him sick.
His “beliefs were the core of who he became,” she added.
CDC director Susan Monarez said that the center was “deeply sad” due to the attack.
“Dekalb County Police, CDC Security and Emory University responded immediately and decisively, and helped to prevent our employees and community further,” she wrote in a message about X.
In a press conference on Friday, the police said that they became aware of a report from an active shooter around 16:50 local time (20:50 GMT) that day near the CDC.
Officers of several agencies responded. The CDC campus received a number of rounds of gunfire in its buildings.
The police said that they found the shooter “struck by gunfire” – but could not specify or that of law enforcement or had been inflicted herself.
Secretary of Health Robert Kennedy JR issued a statement that the desk was “deeply sad” by the attack that claimed the life of an officer.
“We know how shocked our colleagues from public health feel today. Nobody should be confronted with violence while working to protect the health of others,” said Kennedy.
Kennedy has previously expressed doubts about the side effects of vaccines, in particular Covid -vaccines, and is accused of distributing wrong information.
Some former CDC employees who were fired as part of the Elon Musk campaign to reduce the government rejected Kennedy’s statement.
“Kennedy is directly responsible for the villain of CDC’s workforce because of its continuous lies about the safety of science and vaccine, who have fueled a climate of hostility and distrust,” wrote an ex-employee, according to the Associated Press News Agency.
Another former CDC employee said the outlet that the shooting was “physical embodiment of the story that science took over, attacked and attack our federal workers”.
Media have reported that CDC employees were asked to work remotely on Monday.
