Gunman in Deadly C.D.C. Shooting Fixated on Covid Vaccine

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

This is what the worldwide flood of COVID and anti-vax misinformation ends up helping to produce, as a mentally disturbed gunman (read domestic terrorist) peppered the CDC headquarters buildings in Atlanta with gunfire and shot and killed a responding police officer who tried to stop him:

 

 

Gunman in Deadly C.D.C. Shooting Fixated on Covid Vaccine, Officials Say

The shooting in Atlanta, which killed a police officer, followed the spread of false information around Covid vaccines and animosity directed at the agency, public health workers say.

 

Aug. 9, 2025

...

"Law enforcement officials said that Patrick Joseph White, a 30-year-old from the suburbs of Atlanta, opened fire on the complex of buildings on Friday afternoon. He had become fixated with the coronavirus vaccine, believing that it was the cause of his own physical ailments, officials said, and he attacked the institution that has been at the center of rampant conspiracy theories and misinformation about the federal government’s response to the pandemic.

...

The attack has provoked alarm and outrage from the community of public health officials and workers whose efforts have been maligned and politicized. They argue that the shooting was a manifestation of false information that has surrounded the vaccine and animosity directed at the agency. [emphasis added]

 

(more)

 

New York Times

https://archive.ph/brsqk

 

 

 

Emory-CDC shooting latest: Suspected killer Patrick White’s neighbor noticed vaccine obsession but didn’t think he’d hurt anyone

10 August 2025

 

"Patrick Joseph White, the man police say killed a local officer and fired several rounds at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention campus, was obsessed with anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, a new report reveals. [emphasis added]

 

White, 30, opened fire at an Atlanta CVS on Friday afternoon and hit at least four CDC buildings across the street, police said. DeKalb County Police Officer David Rose, a 33-year-old married father of two with a third on the way, was killed in the gunfire, officials said. No civilians were injured.

 

The gunman was found dead in the CVS, but officials don’t know “whether that was from officers or if it was self-inflicted,” Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said Friday."

 

(more)

 

The Independent

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/crime/atlanta-shooting-emory-cdc-suspect-patrick-white-dead-updates-b2804858.html

 

 

 

CDC shooter believed COVID vaccine made him suicidal, his father tells police

August 9, 2025

 

"ATLANTA — A Georgia man who opened fire on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters, shooting dozens of rounds into the sprawling complex and killing a police officer, had blamed the COVID-19 vaccine for making him depressed and suicidal, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press on Saturday.

 

The 30-year-old shooter also 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 late Friday afternoon, the official said. He was armed with five guns, including at least one long gun, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the investigation." [emphasis added]

 

(more)

 

https://www.npr.org/2025/08/09/nx-s1-5497178/cdc-atlanta-emory-shooter-covid-vaccine-suicidal

 

 

 

 

 

[impulse]

1 hour ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

This is what the worldwide flood of COVID and anti-vax misinformation

 

It wasn't COVID anti-vax misinformation.  It was his vaccine injury and the lack of compassion and recourse and meaningful compensation that set the guy off.

 

I understand his frustration.  It was 2 years after my vaccine injury (the day after my 2nd Pfizer) before the hospital even admitted that mine was a commonly reported side effect.  Before that, they said they didn't know what caused it, but claimed it definitely wasn't the "safe and effectives".

 

I'm so glad to see the squelched studies finally making it into the light of day.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

There have been some very rare and serious side effects associated with mRNA vaccines (suicide isn't one of them!).

 

But the small number of those have been dwarfed by the mountains of misinformation, unsupported claims that have been spread on social media and elsewhere, including by posters here on this forum. Not to mention the vastly larger number of people who have died from COVID and continue to die from COVID even now, with those not current on their vaccinations dying at much higher rates than those who have kept current. [see next post below]

 

For starters, in the case of the shooter here, there's been NO documentation produced thus far that any COVID vaccine was in fact responsible for whatever maladies the guy had or believed he had.  Time will tell on that front.

 

But either way, that's one guy... And in the meantime, we have the following based on more than 1 million COVID mRNA vaccine recipients:

 

 

 

"The nationwide cohort study, published this week in JAMA Network Open, included 1,585,883 people (54% female), of whom 1,012,400 (64%) received the updated mRNA COVID vaccines containing the JN.1 lineage. 

...

No increased risk of 29 adverse events

...

They found no statistically significant increases in the rate of hospital contacts for any of 29 adverse events during the 28-day period after patients received an mRNA vaccine."

 

 

[save the frogs]

12 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

a mentally disturbed

there are a million reasons why a person might become mentally disturbed in this day and age.

no need to have a covid debate.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

 

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/united-states-rates-of-covid-19-deaths-by-vaccination-status

 

[dinsdale]

The narrative will be supported and claims of vaccine injuries will be dismissed. Sad that this guy lost it, a police officer died as did the gunman. Maybe if from the beginning it was demonstrated that this "vaccine" had the potential of serious side effects and was treated as such rather than treated as misinformation this might not have happened.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

42 minutes ago, dinsdale said:

Maybe if from the beginning it was demonstrated that this "vaccine" had the potential of serious side effects and was treated as such rather than treated as misinformation this might not have happened.

 

Pretty much ANY drug or medical procedure has POTENTIALLY serious side effects, and the various countries' health authorities have acknowledged that regarding COVID vaccines since the very beginning, while also correctly pointing out that the serious health risks from COVID the virus/disease FAR outweighed the very rare, uncommon actual (as opposed to fabricated) health risks from vaccination. In short, your odds were much better getting vaccinated than not.

 

Contrary to your claim, here's the U.S. CDC publicly talking and reporting on the issue of vaccine side effects in fall 2021, still early in the pandemic and less than a year after the start of widespread COVID vaccinations.

 

2021 Oct 16

 

Reactogenicity within 2 weeks after mRNA COVID-19 vaccines: Findings from the CDC v-safe surveillance system

Discussion

"From December 2020 through March 2021, over 4 million COVID-19 vaccine recipients provided information about their post-vaccination experience to the CDC v-safe surveillance system. During the first week following vaccination, we found that local and systemic reactions were common, and occurred more frequently after dose 2 and more frequently among mRNA-1273 [Moderna] recipients.

...

Our findings from millions of v-safe responses suggest that common reactions following mRNA-based vaccines include injection site pain, fatigue, headache, myalgia, chills, fever, joint pain, injection site swelling, and nausea."

 

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8519847/

 

But the same report above also noted what was known as the time about more serious but still very rare side effects:

 

"A report using Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System data has already estimated that rates of severe allergic reactions and anaphylaxis were 2.5 and 4.7 cases per million doses administered for the mRNA-1273 and BNT162b2 vaccines, respectively."

 

At the time of this CDC report in fall 2021, U.S. COVID deaths were running about 10,000 PER WEEK!

 

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_weeklydeaths_select_00

 

I went with the odds, thanks very much!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[dinsdale]

10 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

Pretty much ANY drug or medical procedure has POTENTIALLY serious side effects, and the various countries' health authorities have acknowledged that regarding COVID vaccines since the very beginning, while also correctly pointing out that the serious health risks from COVID the virus/disease FAR outweighed the very rare, uncommon actual (as opposed to fabricated) health risks from vaccination. In short, your odds were much better getting vaccinated than not.

 

Contrary to your claim, here's the U.S. CDC publicly talking and reporting on the issue of vaccine side effects in fall 2021, still early in the pandemic and less than a year after the start of widespread COVID vaccinations.

 

2021 Oct 16

 

Reactogenicity within 2 weeks after mRNA COVID-19 vaccines: Findings from the CDC v-safe surveillance system

Discussion

"From December 2020 through March 2021, over 4 million COVID-19 vaccine recipients provided information about their post-vaccination experience to the CDC v-safe surveillance system. During the first week following vaccination, we found that local and systemic reactions were common, and occurred more frequently after dose 2 and more frequently among mRNA-1273 [Moderna] recipients.

...

Our findings from millions of v-safe responses suggest that common reactions following mRNA-based vaccines include injection site pain, fatigue, headache, myalgia, chills, fever, joint pain, injection site swelling, and nausea."

 

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8519847/

 

But the same report above also noted what was known as the time about more serious but still very rare side effects:

 

"A report using Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System data has already estimated that rates of severe allergic reactions and anaphylaxis were 2.5 and 4.7 cases per million doses administered for the mRNA-1273 and BNT162b2 vaccines, respectively."

 

At the time of this CDC report in fall 2021, U.S. COVID deaths were running about 10,000 PER WEEK!

 

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_weeklydeaths_select_00

 

I went with the odds, thanks very much!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CDC. Sure. 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

ER doctor and public health columnist Jeremy Faust, in his Inside Medicine blog, reported on an internal CDC meeting (via phone and Teams chat) some staff had Saturday with newly confirmed CDC director Susan Monarez regarding the shooting, Faust's column linked below provides a recap of the call provided by a participating CDC staffer. Below are excerpts from Faust's column:

 

"Overall, my interpretation is that agency staffers felt supported by the agency—though they had reasonable questions about safety mechanisms—but expressed misgivings about HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the White House.

...

• Staffers who spoke up in the chat window during the meeting called on HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the White House to condemn both the attack itself and vaccine conspiracy theories. (Such messages apparently received “a ton of likes” in the Teams chat.)

• One CDC employee asked whether Director Monarez had yet spoken to Secretary Kennedy about his plan to address the incident. Monarez deflected, saying the agency had been in communication with the “Office of the Secretary,” and the it was a “fluid and dynamic situation.” When pushed on whether Monarez had spoken to the Secretary herself, she again bobbed and weaved, saying “We’ve been in constant communication with the Office of the Secretary.”
   

https://insidemedicine.substack.com/p/cdc-staff-told-attack-was-targeted

 

 

 

[blaze master]

Care to share stats on the regular mass shootings in Chicago or ? 

 

1 guy among hundreds of millions of people vs how many deaths and Injuries for the hundreds of millions of vaccines.

 

Yes its tragic someone was shot but it doesnt even register statistically considering all the *anti vaxxers* out there.

[Yagoda]

1 hour ago, dinsdale said:

The narrative will be supported and claims of vaccine injuries will be dismissed. Sad that this guy lost it, a police officer died as did the gunman. Maybe if from the beginning it was demonstrated that this "vaccine" had the potential of serious side effects and was treated as such rather than treated as misinformation this might not have happened.

Lets cherry pick our loons too. Only so called "right wing" loons are violent and deserve bold headlines, tranny school shooters blasting Christian girls never happen.

 

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Perhaps you both should read (or re-read) the opening recap provided by the New York Times, in terms of what's the point here:

 

"he attacked the institution that has been at the center of rampant conspiracy theories and misinformation about the federal government’s response to the pandemic. [emphasis added]

...

The attack has provoked alarm and outrage from the community of public health officials and workers whose efforts have been maligned and politicized. They argue that the shooting was a manifestation of false information that has surrounded the vaccine and animosity directed at the agency."

 

(more)

 

New York Times

https://archive.ph/brsqk

[blaze master]

Perhaps you should get a grip. 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

The now-deceased shooter murdered a policeman and fired dozens of rounds of gunfire into various buildings at the CDC campus in Atlanta...

 

I think the thread above is getting a grip on the incident quite well.

 

[Lacessit]

16 minutes ago, blaze master said:

Care to share stats on the regular mass shootings in Chicago or ? 

 

1 guy among hundreds of millions of people vs how many deaths and Injuries for the hundreds of millions of vaccines.

 

Yes its tragic someone was shot but it doesnt even register statistically considering all the *anti vaxxers* out there.

Please show me a pro-vaxxer who has gone on a shooting spree against anti-vaxxers.

[blaze master]

Just now, Lacessit said:

Please show me a pro-vaxxer who has gone on a shooting spree against anti-vaxxers.

 

Go gaslight somewhere else.

[Lacessit]

28 minutes ago, blaze master said:

 

Go gaslight somewhere else.

Pass. It's more fun exposing the stupidity of your post.

[blaze master]

2 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

Pass. It's more fun exposing the stupidity of your post.

 

I could make.it personal like you always do. but ill rise above your childish behavior.

 

 

[blaze master]

48 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

The now-deceased shooter murdered a policeman and fired dozens of rounds of gunfire into various buildings at the CDC campus in Atlanta...

 

I think the thread above is getting a grip on the incident quite well.

 

 

If you say so. 

[dinsdale]

1 hour ago, blaze master said:

*anti vaxxers*

Do you mean those who have a problem with the safety of mRNA vaccines or all vaccines? There's a very big difference although sheeple don't seem to know this.

[Lacessit]

50 minutes ago, blaze master said:

 

I could make.it personal like you always do. but ill rise above your childish behavior.

 

 

You seem to miss the fact you made it personal when you accused me of gaslighting.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

From public health blogger Katelyn Jetelina, who runs the widely followed Your Local Epidemiologist blog and is a professional epidemiologist and former scientific advisor to the CDC:

 

Bullets in the windows

Until now, it was only a metaphor.

Aug 10, 2025

 

"On Friday, my phone lit up with urgent texts. First: gunshots, lockdown. Then the photos—bullet holes punched through windows, shell casings scattered across the floor, videos echoing with “pop pop pop.”

The CDC campus was under attack. Dozens of my friends and colleagues were inside."

 

...

Those bullet holes are a haunting, terrible metaphor for what public health has endured over the past six months—and the past six years."

 

(more)

 

https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/bullets-in-the-windows

 

 

"YLE is a public health newsletter that reaches over 380,000 people in more than 132 countries, with one goal: to translate the ever-evolving public health science so that people are well-equipped to make evidence-based decisions"

 

 

 

[blaze master]

36 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

You seem to miss the fact you made it personal when you accused me of gaslighting.

 

If you say so. 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

When was the last time a head of the U.S. HHS was called out by hundreds of his agency's current and former staffers to stop spreading misinformation? It's unprecedented, as are Kennedy and his appointees' abuses of the HHS and its policies.

 

HHS staffers implore RFK Jr. to ‘stop spreading inaccurate health information’ in wake of CDC shooting

August 21, 2025

 

More than 750 current and former staffers at the US Department of Health and Human Services implored Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in a letter Wednesday to “stop spreading inaccurate health information” after a shooter fired hundreds of rounds at the headquarters of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier this month.

 

The letter, also addressed to members of Congress, noted “the violent August 8th attack on CDC’s headquarters in Atlanta was not random.” The Georgia Bureau of Investigation reported that the shooter had expressed discontent with the Covid-19 vaccine and wanted to make his distrust known.

 

“The attack came amid growing mistrust in public institutions, driven by politicized rhetoric that has turned public health professionals from trusted experts into targets of villainization – and now, violence,” wrote the staffers, who emphasized they signed the letter “in our own personal capacities.” Some signed anonymously “out of fear of retaliation and personal safety.”

 

(more)

 

https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/20/health/rfk-congress-misinformation-letter-cdc?

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Background on the same issue in the wake of the shooting from the Washington Post:

 

After CDC shooting, its employees turn their anger to RFK Jr. and Trump

 

Documents from the shooter’s home showed his discontent with coronavirus vaccines, authorities said. CDC workers want RFK Jr. to denounce vaccine misinformation.

 

August 12, 2025

 

...

"For many in public health, the shooting seemed to vindicate their long-running fears that the backlash to their work during the coronavirus pandemic could turn deadly. Some left the field after a vitriolic response to mandates for masking and vaccination. Armed protesters gathered outside the homes of health officials. Some health officials faced death threats, including Anthony S. Fauci, one of the leaders of the federal coronavirus response.

 

Days after the shooting, the initial shock has morphed into anger for many CDC employees, according to interviews with more than a dozen of them, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.

 

They fault President Donald Trump for not publicly condemning the shooting as of Tuesday, even as he invoked the assault of a former U.S. DOGE Service staffer to deploy troops in D.C. and take over its police department. They said they are fed up with how they and their work are being derided and impugned by conservatives and anti-vaccine activists, including the one who rose to lead the nation’s public health apparatus: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr."

 

(more)

 

Washington Post

https://archive.ph/Tksa0

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/08/12/cdc-shooting-atlanta-rfk-vaccine/

 

 

Follow-up note: Not only has Kennedy not renounced his past anti-vaccine misinformation, but he's doubled down on the same in the wake of the shooting and is continuing to push the same debunked, unsupported anti-vax claims widely derided by numerous U.S. public health and medical associations.

 

[stevenl]

11 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

When was the last time a head of the U.S. HHS was called out by hundreds of his agency's current and former staffers to stop spreading misinformation? It's unprecedented, as are Kennedy and his appointees' abuses of the HHS and its policies.

 

HHS staffers implore RFK Jr. to ‘stop spreading inaccurate health information’ in wake of CDC shooting

August 21, 2025

 

More than 750 current and former staffers at the US Department of Health and Human Services implored Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in a letter Wednesday to “stop spreading inaccurate health information” after a shooter fired hundreds of rounds at the headquarters of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier this month.

 

The letter, also addressed to members of Congress, noted “the violent August 8th attack on CDC’s headquarters in Atlanta was not random.” The Georgia Bureau of Investigation reported that the shooter had expressed discontent with the Covid-19 vaccine and wanted to make his distrust known.

 

“The attack came amid growing mistrust in public institutions, driven by politicized rhetoric that has turned public health professionals from trusted experts into targets of villainization – and now, violence,” wrote the staffers, who emphasized they signed the letter “in our own personal capacities.” Some signed anonymously “out of fear of retaliation and personal safety.”

 

(more)

 

https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/20/health/rfk-congress-misinformation-letter-cdc?

 

I hope for them they didn't sign with their names. Looking at the retribution for criticism of this administration, they could get fired.