{"id":332504,"date":"2025-08-10T06:53:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T06:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/332504\/"},"modified":"2025-08-10T06:53:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T06:53:12","slug":"man-who-killed-police-officer-blamed-covid-jab-for-making-him-depressed-and-suicidal-us-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/332504\/","title":{"rendered":"Man who killed police officer ‘blamed COVID jab for making him depressed and suicidal’ | US News"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man who opened fire on the headquarters of America’s national public health agency – leaving a police officer dead – had blamed the COVID vaccine for making him depressed and suicidal.<\/p>\n

Patrick Joseph White, a 30-year-old from Georgia, had tried to enter the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta but was stopped by guards, a law enforcement official said.<\/p>\n

They added that White then drove to a pharmacy across the street before opening fire late on Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n

He was armed with five guns – including at least one long gun.<\/p>\n

DeKalb County Police Officer David Rose, who had three children, was shot dead while responding to the incident.<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

Image:
\n DeKalb County Police Officer David Rose. Pic: Reuters<\/p>\n

White also died, but authorities haven’t said whether he was killed by police or if he killed himself.<\/p>\n

His father had contacted police and identified his son as the possible gunman.<\/p>\n

White’s father also said his son had been upset over the death of his dog and had become fixated on the COVID-19 vaccine.<\/p>\n

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, whose scepticism of vaccines has been a cornerstone of his career, voiced support for CDC employees yesterday.<\/p>\n

But some laid-off CDC employees said Mr Kennedy shares responsibility for the violence and should resign.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Image:
\n An armed police officer at the scene. Pic: AP<\/p>\n

Mr Kennedy has a history as a leader in the anti-vaccine movement, but he reached new prominence by spreading distrust of COVID-19 vaccines. For example, he called it “criminal medical malpractice” to give these jabs to children.<\/p>\n

He said after the shooting: “We are deeply saddened by the tragic shooting at CDC’s Atlanta campus that took the life of officer David Rose.<\/p>\n

“We know how shaken our public health colleagues feel today. No one should face violence while working to protect the health of others.”<\/p>\n

Sarah Boim, a former CDC communications staffer who was fired this year during a wave of terminations, said the shooting was the “physical embodiment of the narrative that has taken over, attacking science, and attacking our federal workers”.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Image:
\n The CDC headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. Pic: AP<\/p>\n

White’s ‘distrust of COVID vaccines’<\/strong><\/p>\n

A neighbour of White told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the gunman spoke with her multiple times about his distrust of COVID-19 jabs.<\/p>\n

Nancy Hoalst, who lives on the same street as White’s family, said he seemed like a “good guy” but he would bring up vaccines even in unrelated conversations.<\/p>\n

“He was very unsettled, and he very deeply believed that vaccines hurt him and were hurting other people.” Ms Hoalst told the Atlanta newspaper. “He emphatically believed that.”<\/p>\n

However, she said she never believed White would be violent and added: “I had no idea he thought he would take it out on the CDC.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man who opened fire on the headquarters of America’s national public health agency – leaving a police…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-332504","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115003156519678591","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}