CDC leaders call shooting targeted and deliberate as rattled staff say they felt like ‘sitting ducks’

In a large and hastily arranged Zoom call on Saturday, about 800 rattled staffers with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tried to make sense of the trauma they endured just a day earlier when a gunman opened fire on the agency’s buildings from across the street.

They had been winding down for the weekend when more than 40 bullets smashed through their office windows, whizzing just over their cubicle walls and petrifying staffers in at least four buildings.

But Friday’s violent episode is the latest unsettling new chapter to what has been a turbulent period for the CDC. While authorities have not announced a motive for the shooting, law enforcement sources say the suspect may have targeted the CDC over health concerns he blamed on the Covid-19 vaccine.

One of the world’s leading health agencies, the CDC is tasked with protecting the health of Americans. But it has come under fire during the second Trump administration as conspiracy theories continue to plague the vaccine credited with halting the spread of the global pandemic.

The attack on the CDC offices had been targeted and deliberate, CDC leaders told staff on the call. Staffers might hear their work was targeted as a possible motivation for the shooter, leadership added.

CDC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Debra Houry acknowledged the terror staffers experienced whether they were in the building or not, saying leaders were “mad this happened.”

Leaders told staffers, many of whom work in the agency’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, the attack was carried out by a shooter who had been reaching out for mental health assistance for weeks before the incident but had not made any threats ahead of time, according to two sources who spoke on the condition they not be named.

It’s unclear who the suspect, identified as 30-year-old Patrick Joseph White, was reaching out to. The investigation into what led to the shooting is ongoing.

‘This was not stray bullets’

The shooting began just before 5 p.m. at the Emory Point CVS drugstore on Clifton Road, directly across from the main entrance to the CDC.

The gunman – wearing what appeared to be a surgical mask and armed with two handguns, a rifle, a shotgun and two backpacks filled with ammo – fired on at least four CDC buildings.

There were at least 40 bullet holes in two buildings, as well as a few in a third building, CDC leaders said on the call Saturday. The buildings house much of the non-lab work at CDC.

“This was not stray bullets,” one leader said on the call, sharing updates from the authorities. CNN obtained copies of staff notes from the meeting, which were shared in a large employee group chat.

CDC employees said on Saturday’s call they felt like “sitting ducks.”

Photos viewed by CNN taken from inside one CDC building depict bullet holes in windows and shattered glass on the floor. The images show rounds of ammunition flew just above a line of office cubicles where employees sit.

As the gunman fired at the CDC complex, DeKalb County police officer David Rose pulled up. The shooter turned his aim from the CDC complex to the officer, according to a law enforcement source.

Rose, 33, was shot and later died at a hospital. A married father of two, with another on the way, Rose would have made one year on the job next month.

After a tense lockdown stretching into the night, the gunman was struck by gunfire and found dead on the second floor of the CVS store. Police could not say if the gunfire came from officers or the gunman himself.

In the CDC offices, employees said the situation could have been much worse.

“It’s a miracle no one was killed here,” one CDC employee told CNN.

Shooting happened amid vaccine misinformation and slashed CDC funding

After speaking with family members of the suspect, police are operating under the hypothesis he was either sick or believed he was sick and blamed the illness on the Covid-19 vaccine, a law enforcement official told CNN.

The shooting occurred the same week US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – a longtime critic of Covid vaccinations, with a history of spreading vaccine misinformation – announced the cancellation of a half-billion dollars in investments in mRNA projects.

HHS said it would cancel federal funding for nearly two dozen mRNA vaccine projects.

“We are deeply saddened by the tragic shooting at CDC’s Atlanta campus that took the life of officer David Rose,” Kennedy said Saturday. “No one should face violence while working to protect the health of others.”

“Public health workers show up every day with purpose — even in moments of grief and uncertainty,” the health secretary continued. “We honor their service. We stand with them. And we remain united in our mission to protect and improve the health of every American.”

When asked on the Saturday call if she had spoken to Kennedy about his plan to address the shooting, CDC Director Dr. Susan Monarez responded they’ve been in contact with his office, according to staff notes obtained by CNN.

Monarez was also asked what the agency planned to do to address disinformation, but agency leaders on the call did not directly respond.

Monarez informed CDC staff via email they will work remotely on Monday while a “security assessment” is conducted. Employee assistance personnel were made available to workers, she said.

Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said CDC employees have “had a tough go of it in the past year,” referencing the “uncertainty” around CDC staff’s employment.

The agency has lost nearly a quarter of its staff since January. The Trump administration’s proposed budget for the fiscal year 2026 would slash the agency’s funding by more than half.

Under the proposed reorganization, the CDC would lose additional programs. Some would be transferred to a new Administration for a Healthy America, while others – such as the National Center for Chronic Disease and Health Promotion – would be eliminated entirely.

“My heart goes out to you,” Dickens said. “We are with you. We stand with you, and we’re doing everything we can to make sure that we bring resolve to the situation.”

CNN’s Kathleen Magramo and Ray Sanchez contributed to this report.

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