The man who unleashed a hail of bullets on the Centers for Disease Control on Friday, killing a police officer, blamed the COVID-19 vaccine for his depression, authorities said Saturday.
Patrick White, 30, was found dead in a pharmacy across the street from CDC headquarters in Atlanta, where he had opened fire on the agency. Investigators said it wasn’t immediately clear if he shot himself to death or if bullets fired by responding cops killed him.
White blamed the COVID vaccine for his deteriorating mental health, according to law enforcement officials and his father.
“He was very unsettled, and he very deeply believed that vaccines hurt him and were hurting other people,” White’s neighbor, Nancy Hoalst, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Cops said White initially tried to enter the CDC’s main building but was turned away so he set up across the street and began shooting. David Rose, a 33-year-old DeKalb County police officer, was fatally shot responding to the scene.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vaccine crusades helped catapult him into his current job as the nation’s top health official. Kennedy has repeatedly criticized the COVID vaccine since it was released, even though multiple scientific studies have shown it likely saved millions of lives.
Dismissed CDC employees have called for the resignations of Kennedy and Russell Vought, the Office of Management and Budget director who was appointed by President Trump.
“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” Vought said in 2024, before he got the job. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.”
The CDC told employees to work from home or take leave Monday.
With News Wire Services
Originally Published:
