(Headline USA) The Georgia Bureau of Investigation says the man who fired more than 180 shots at the headquarters of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after killing a police officer.
Documents found in a search of the suspect’s home “expressed the shooter’s discontent with the Covid 19 vaccinations,” Georgia Bureau of Investigations Director Chris Hosey said.
Patrick Joseph White also had recently verbalized thoughts of suicide, which led to law enforcement being contacted several weeks before the shooting, Hosey said.
Police say White opened fire outside the CDC headquarters in Atlanta on Friday, leaving bullet marks in windows across the sprawling campus. At least four CDC buildings were hit, Director Susan Monarez said.
The 30-year-old suspect had further tried to get into the CDC’s headquarters in Atlanta but was stopped by guards before driving to a pharmacy across the street and opening fire.
DeKalb County Police Officer David Rose was mortally wounded while responding. Rose, 33, a former Marine who served in Afghanistan, had graduated from the police academy in March.
Shooter had fixation on COVID-19 vaccine
White’s father, who contacted police and identified his son as the possible shooter, said White had been upset over the death of his dog and also had become fixated on the COVID-19 vaccine, according to the law enforcement official.
A neighbor of White told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that White “seemed like a good guy” but spoke with her multiple times about his distrust of COVID-19 vaccines in unrelated conversations.
“He was very unsettled, and he very deeply believed that vaccines hurt him and were hurting other people,” Nancy Hoalst, told the Atlanta newspaper. “He emphatically believed that.”
But Hoalst said she never believed White would be violent: “I had no idea he thought he would take it out on the CDC.”
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
