ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has identified a man who fired fire at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as 30-year-old Patrick Joseph White of Kennesaw, Georgia.
A GBI statement said White was killed and Officer David Rose was shot dead on Friday while shooting along with the DeKalb County Police Department.
The shooter fired fire outside the CDC headquarters, struck windows across the vast campus, killing officers before he died in a nearby building, authorities said. The attack prompted a massive response by law enforcement to one of the nation’s most prominent public health agencies, but no one reported being injured.
Director Susan Monares said in a post in X that at least four CDC buildings were attacked. Images shared by employees showed multiple agency buildings with windows with bullets on display, highlighting the extent of damage to sites where thousands of scientists and staff are working on critical disease research.
Without naming White last night, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens described him as “a known person who may be interested in certain things.”
The gunman was found on the second floor of a building across the street from the CDC campus and was killed at the scene, said Atlanta Police Chief Darrin Siebaum. He added Friday, “At this point, I don’t know if it was from an executive or self-harm.”
The shooter was armed with a long gun, and authorities recovered three other firearms at the scene. This is according to law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said Friday that the gunman’s motives were still unknown early in the investigation.
Voicemail left on the phone number listed for white in the public records was not immediately returned on Saturday morning.
Rose, 33, is a former Marine who worked in Afghanistan and graduated from the Police Academy in March, and “same-after-a-days he won the respect of his colleagues for his dedication, courage and professionalism,” DeKalb County said in a statement.
“I have a wife without a husband tonight, and I have three children, a fatherless unborn baby,” said Dekalb County CEO Lorraine Cochran Johnson.
The GBI is leading the investigation and said it could take some time to unravel what happened on Saturday.
“There is extensive evidence to gather due to the complicated scene,” the agency said in a statement. “There are a lot of interviews being conducted. This research will take a long time.”
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