A Georgia man who wanted to send a message against COVID-19 vaccines fired over 180 times with a long gun at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's headquarters in Atlanta, killing a police officer, authorities said.
Patrick Joseph White, 30, who has been identified as the shooter in the attack late Friday at the CDC, tried to get into the complex but was stopped by guards before driving to a pharmacy across the street and opening fire, authorities said. White took his own life during the attack.
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A bullet hole is visible in the door of a CVS pharmacy on Saturday, August 9, 2025, near where police say a man was shooting at the headquarters of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta (AP Photo/Jeff Amy)
The notable bullet marks on the windows of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters are visible on Sunday Aug. 10, 2025. (Miguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)
This photo provided by Georgia Bureau of Investigations Patrick Joseph White. ( Georgia Bureau of Investigations via AP)
People leave flowers Monday, Aug. 11, 2025, at a makeshift memorial in honor of David Rose, the officer who was killed in the shooting at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Charlotte Kramon)
The notable bullet marks on the windows of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters are visible from Clifton Rd, on Sunday, Aug. 10, 2025. (Miguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)
A bullet hole is visible in the door of a CVS pharmacy on Saturday, August 9, 2025, near where police say a man was shooting at the headquarters of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta (AP Photo/Jeff Amy)
A lone bouquet sits outside a CVS pharmacy on Saturday, Aug. 9, 2025, near where police say a man was shooting at the headquarters of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta (AP Photo/Jeff Amy)
A union representing CDC workers said the shooting was not random and “compounds months of mistreatment, neglect, and vilification that CDC staff have endured.” It demanded that federal officials condemn vaccine misinformation, saying it puts scientists at risk.
Here's what to know about the shooting and the continuing investigation:
The barrage of gunfire unleashed by White left bullet marks in windows across the sprawling campus, police said. At least four CDC buildings were hit, CDC Director Susan Monarez said on the social platform X.
The bullets pierced “blast-resistant” windows, pinning employees down, and more than 500 shell casings were recovered, authorities said.
David Rose, a DeKalb County police officer, was fatally wounded while responding. Rose, a 33-year-old former Marine who served in Afghanistan, graduated from the police academy in March.
White was found on the second floor of a building across the street from the campus and died at the scene, Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said. His death was due to a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey.
The American Federation of Government Employees, Local 2883, said the CDC and leadership of the Department of Health and Human Services must provide a “clear and unequivocal stance in condemning vaccine disinformation.”
Such a public statement by federal officials is needed to help prevent violence against scientists, the union said.
“Their leadership is critical in reinforcing public trust and ensuring that accurate, science-based information prevails,” it said in a statement.
Fired But Fighting, a group of laid-off CDC employees, has said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is directly responsible for the villainization of the workforce through “his continuous lies about science and vaccine safety, which have fueled a climate of hostility and mistrust.”
Public health leaders have been experiencing harassment and violence around the country since anti-vaccine vitriol took root during the pandemic. Kennedy has amplified the rhetoric, repeatedly making false and misleading statements about the safety of immunizations.
He told staffers over the weekend that “no one should face violence while working to protect the health of others,” without addressing the impact of anti-vaccine rhetoric.
HHS Communications Director Andrew Nixon said Monday in a statement that Kennedy “has unequivocally condemned the horrific attack and remains fully committed to ensuring the safety and well-being of CDC employees.” Nixon added that Rose's “sacrifice to protect the CDC on its darkest day will never be forgotten.”
Thousands of people who work on critical disease research are employed on the campus. The union said some staffers huddled in various buildings until late at night Friday, while more than 90 young children were locked down inside the CDC's Clifton School.
The union said CDC employees should not be required to immediately return to work after such a traumatic event.
It said windows and buildings should first be fixed and made “completely secure.” The union also called for “perimeter security on all campuses” until the investigation is completed and the results are shared with staffers.
White was living with his parents, and his father contacted police and identified his son as the possible shooter. The father said White was upset over the death of his dog and became fixated on the COVID-19 vaccine, according to law enforcement officials.
Authorities recovered documents and electronic devices at the family’s suburban Atlanta home that are being analyzed, as well as five firearms including a gun belonging to the father that was used in the attack, authorities said.
White did not have a key to his father's gun safe, Hosey said: “He broke into it.”
The documents recovered by authorities “expressed the shooter’s discontent with the COVID-19 vaccinations,” and White had written about wanting to make “the public aware of his discontent with the vaccine,” Hosey added.
White also recently verbalized thoughts of suicide, which led to law enforcement being contacted several weeks before the shooting, Hosey said. His father told police he blamed the COVID-19 vaccine for making him depressed and suicidal, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press.
A neighbor told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that White “seemed like a good guy” but spoke with her multiple times in unrelated conversations about his distrust of COVID-19 vaccines.
“He was very unsettled, and he very deeply believed that vaccines hurt him and were hurting other people,” Nancy Hoalst told the paper. “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.”
A bullet hole is visible in the door of a CVS pharmacy on Saturday, August 9, 2025, near where police say a man was shooting at the headquarters of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta (AP Photo/Jeff Amy)
The notable bullet marks on the windows of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters are visible on Sunday Aug. 10, 2025. (Miguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)
This photo provided by Georgia Bureau of Investigations Patrick Joseph White. ( Georgia Bureau of Investigations via AP)
People leave flowers Monday, Aug. 11, 2025, at a makeshift memorial in honor of David Rose, the officer who was killed in the shooting at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Charlotte Kramon)
The notable bullet marks on the windows of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters are visible from Clifton Rd, on Sunday, Aug. 10, 2025. (Miguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)
A bullet hole is visible in the door of a CVS pharmacy on Saturday, August 9, 2025, near where police say a man was shooting at the headquarters of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta (AP Photo/Jeff Amy)
A lone bouquet sits outside a CVS pharmacy on Saturday, Aug. 9, 2025, near where police say a man was shooting at the headquarters of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta (AP Photo/Jeff Amy)
The U.N. Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting Thursday to discuss Iran's deadly protests at the request of the United States, even as President Donald Trump left unclear what actions he would take against the Islamic Republic.
Tehran appeared to make conciliatory statements in an effort to defuse the situation after Trump threatened to take action to stop further killing of protesters, including the execution of anyone detained in Tehran’s bloody crackdown on nationwide protests.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “All options remain on the table for the president.”
Iran’s crackdown on the demonstrations has killed at least 2,615, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported. The death toll exceeds any other round of protest or unrest in Iran in decades and recalls the chaos surrounding the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The sound of gunfire faded Thursday in the capital, Tehran. The country closed its airspace to commercial flights for hours without explanation early Thursday and some personnel at a key U.S. military base in Qatar were advised to evacuate. The U.S. Embassy in Kuwait also ordered its personnel to “temporary halt” travel to the multiple military bases in the small Gulf Arab country.
Here is the latest:
Masih Alinejad, one of the most vocal Iranian dissidents in the U.S., accused the United Nations and the Security Council of failing “to respond with the urgency this moment demands” at the emergency U.N. Security Council meeting Thursday.
In October, two purported Russian mobsters were each sentenced to 25 years behind bars for hiring a hitman to kill Alinejad at her Brooklyn home on behalf of the Iranian government.
Sitting across the table from the Iranian ambassador to the U.N., Alinejad, who came after an invitation from the U.S., said that “the members of this body have forgotten the privilege and responsibility of sitting in this room.”
Ahead of the emergency U.N. Security Council meeting Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Secretary-General António Guterres
spoke by phone to discuss the recent deadly protests and Iran’s request for the world body to do more to condemn what they call foreign influence in the Islamic Republic, according to a readout of the call posted on Iranian state TV.
The semiofficial Tasnim news agency reported that Araghchi implored the top U.N. official to live up to the “serious expectation” that Iran’s government and its people have of the U.N.s’ role in condemning what the officials called “illegal U.S. interventions against Iran.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that U.S. President Donald Trump and his team had communicated to Iranian officials that there would be “grave consequences” if killing continues against protesters in Iran.
“The president understands today that 800 executions that were scheduled and supposed to take place yesterday, were halted,” she said.
But Trump continues closely watching the situation, she said.
“All options remain on the table for the president,” Leavitt said.
Abdul Malik al-Houthi, leader of the Iran-backed Yemeni rebel group, said on Thursday that “criminal gangs” were responsible for the situation in Iran, accusing them of carrying out an “American-Israeli” scheme.
“Criminal gangs in Iran killed Iranian citizens, security forces and burned mosques,” he said without providing evidence. “What’s being committed by criminal gangs in Iran is horrific, bearing an American stamp as it includes slaughter and burning some people alive.”
He also said that the U.S. imposed economic sanctions on Iran to create a crisis leading to the current issues in the country with the end goal of controlling Iran.
Yet he said the U.S. has “failed in Iran” and that Iranians “will not yield to America.”
The president of the European Union’s executive arm says the 27-member bloc is looking to strengthen sanctions against Iran as ordinary Iranians continue their protests against Iran’s theocratic government.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Thursday following a meeting of the EU’s commissioners in Limassol, Cyprus that current sanctions against Iran are “weakening the regime.”
Von der Leyen said that the EU is looking to sanction individual Iranians —apart from those who belong to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard — who “are responsible for the atrocities.”
She added that the people of Iran who are “bravely fighting for a change” have the EU’s “full political support.”
Canada’s foreign minister says a Canadian citizen has died in Iran “at the hands of the Iranian authorities.”
“Peaceful protests by the Iranian people — asking that their voices be heard in the face of the Iranian regime’s repression and ongoing human rights violations — has led the regime to flagrantly disregard human life,” Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand posted on social media Thursday.
“This violence must end. Canada condemns and calls for an immediate end to the Iranian regime’s violence,” she added.
Anand said consular officials are in contact with the victim’s family in Canada. She did not provide details.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies announced Thursday that a local staff member was killed and several others were wounded during the deadly protests in Iran over the weekend.
Amir Ali Latifi, an Iranian Red Crescent Society worker, was working in the country’s Gillan province on Jan. 10 when he was killed “in the line of duty,” the organization said in a statement.
“The IFRC is deeply concerned about the consequences of the ongoing unrest on the people of Iran and is closely monitoring the situation in coordination with the Iranian Red Crescent Society,” the statement continued.
U.S. President Donald Trump has hailed as “good news” reports that the death sentence has been lifted for an Iranian shopkeeper arrested in a violent crackdown on protests.
Relatives of 26-year-old Erfan Soltani had said he faced imminent execution.
Trump posed Thursday on his Truth Social site: “FoxNews: ‘Iranian protester will no longer be sentenced to death after President Trump’s warnings. Likewise others.’ This is good news. Hopefully, it will continue!”
Iranian state media denied Soltani had been condemned to death. Iranian judicial authorities said Soltani was being held in a detention facility outside of the capital. Alongside other protesters, he has been accused of “propaganda activities against the regime,” state media said.
Trump sent tensions soaring this week by pledging that “help is on its way” to Iranian protesters and urging them to continue demonstrating against authorities in the Islamic Republic.
On Wednesday Trump signaled a possible de-escalation, saying he had been told that “the killing in Iran is stopping.”
In a joint statement, the foreign ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union’s main foreign policy chief said the G7 members were “gravely concerned” by the developments surrounding the protests, and that they “strongly oppose the intensification of the Iranian authorities’ brutal repression of the Iranian people.”
The statement, published on the EU’s website Thursday, said the G7 were “deeply alarmed at the high level of reported deaths and injuries” and condemned “the deliberate use of violence” by Iranian security forces against protesters.
The G7 members “remain prepared to impose additional restrictive measures if Iran continues to crack down on protests and dissent in violation of international human rights obligations,” the statement said.
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has spoken with his counterpart in Iran, who said the situation was “now stable,” China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
Abbas Araghchi said “he hoped China will play a greater role in regional peace and stability” during the talks, according to the statement from the ministry.
“China opposes imposing its will on other countries, and opposes a return to the ‘law of the jungle’,” Wang said.
“China believes that the Iranian government and people will unite, overcome difficulties, maintain national stability, and safeguard their legitimate rights and interests,” he added. “China hopes all parties will cherish peace, exercise restraint, and resolve differences through dialogue. China is willing to play a constructive role in this regard.”
“We are against military intervention in Iran,” Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told journalists in Istanbul on Thursday. “Iran must address its own internal problems… They must address their problems with the region and in global terms through diplomacy so that certain structural problems that cause economic problems can be addressed.”
Ankara and Tehran enjoy warm relations despite often holding divergent interests in the region.
Fidan said the unrest in Iran was rooted in economic conditions caused by sanctions, rather than ideological opposition to the government.
Iranians have been largely absent from an annual pilgrimage to Baghdad, Iraq, to commemorate the death of Imam Musa al-Kadhim, one of the twelve Shiite imams.
Many Iranian pilgrims typically make the journey every year for the annual religious rituals.
Streets across Baghdad were crowded with pilgrims Thursday. Most had arrived on foot from central and southern provinces of Iraq, heading toward the shrine of Imam al-Kadhim in the Kadhimiya district in northern Baghdad,
Adel Zaidan, who owns a hotel near the shrine, said the number of Iranian visitors this year compared to previous years was very small. Other residents agreed.
“This visit is different from previous ones. It lacks the large numbers of Iranian pilgrims, especially in terms of providing food and accommodation,” said Haider Al-Obaidi.
Europe’s largest airline group said Thursday it would halt night flights to and from Tel Aviv and Jordan's capital Amman for five days, citing security concerns as fears grow that unrest in Iran could spiral into wider regional violence.
Lufthansa — which operates Swiss, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and Eurowings — said flights would run only during daytime hours from Thursday through Monday “due to the current situation in the Middle East.” It said the change would ensure its staff — which includes unionized cabin crews and pilots -- would not be required to stay overnight in the region.
The airline group also said its planes would bypass Iranian and Iraqi airspace, key corridors for air travel between the Middle East and Asia.
Iran closed its airspace to commercial flights for several hours early Thursday without explanation.
A spokesperson for Israel’s Airport Authority, which oversees Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, said the airport was operating as usual.
Iranian state media has denied claims that a young man arrested during Iran’s recent protests was condemned to death. The statement from Iran’s judicial authorities on Thursday contradicted what it said were “opposition media abroad” which claimed the young man had been quickly sentenced to death during a violent crackdown on anti-government protests in the country.
State television didn’t immediately give any details beyond his name, Erfan Soltani. Iranian judicial authorities said Soltani was being held in a detention facility outside of the capital. Alongside other protesters, he has been accused of “propaganda activities against the regime,” state media said.
New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters said Thursday that his government was “appalled by the escalation of violence and repression” in Iran.
“We condemn the brutal crackdown being carried out by Iran’s security forces, including the killing of protesters,” Peters posted on X.
“Iranians have the right to peaceful protest, freedom of expression, and access to information – and that right is currently being brutally repressed,” he said.
Peters said his government had expressed serious concerns to the Iranian Embassy in Wellington.
Women cross an intersection in downtown Tehran, Iran, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A demonstrator lights a cigarette with a burning poster depicting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a rally in support of Iran's anti-government protests, in Holon, Israel, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Protesters participate in a demonstration in support of the nationwide mass protests in Iran against the government, in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Protesters participate in a demonstration in support of the nationwide mass protests in Iran against the government, in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
