CDC shooter died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Georgia investigators say
Documents found in a search of the suspect's home 'expressed the shooter's discontent with the COVID-19 vaccinations,' Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said. White had written about wanting make 'the public aware of his discontent with the vaccine,' he said.
Patrick Joseph White, 30, also had recently verbalized thoughts of suicide, which led to law enforcement being contacted several weeks before the shooting, Hosey said. He died at the scene Friday of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after killing a police officer.
The suspect's family was fully cooperating with the investigation, authorities said at the Tuesday news briefing. White had no known criminal history, Hosey said.
Executing a search warrant at White's home, authorities recovered written documents that are being analyzed, and seized electronic devices that are undergoing a forensic examination, the agency said.
Investigators also recovered a total of five firearms, along with other critical evidence, the agency said. Hosey said White broke into a secured safe to get the weapons, including a gun that belonged to his father that he used in the attack.
'More than 500 shell casings have been recovered from the crime scene,' the GBI said in a statement Tuesday.
Officials are conducting a threat assessment to the CDC facility and making sure they notify officials of any threats.
The shooting Friday broke about 150 windows across the CDC campus, with bullets piercing 'blast-resistant' windows and spattering glass shards into numerous rooms, and pinned many employees down during the barrage. White had been stopped by CDC security guards before driving to a pharmacy across the street, where he opened fire from a sidewalk, authorities said.
U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. toured the CDC campus on Monday, accompanied by Deputy Secretary Jim O'Neill and CDC Director Susan Monarez, according to a health agency statement. Kennedy also visited the DeKalb County Police Department, and later met privately with the slain officer's wife.
'No one should face violence while working to protect the health of others,' Kennedy said in a statement Saturday that said top federal health officials are 'actively supporting CDC staff.'
He did not speak to the media during his visit Monday. Some unionized CDC employees called for more protections against attack.
Kennedy was a leader in a national anti-vaccine movement before President Donald Trump selected him to oversee federal health agencies, and has made false and misleading statements about the safety and effectiveness of about COVID-19 shots and other vaccines.
Years of false rhetoric about vaccines and public health was bound to 'take a toll on people's mental health,' and 'leads to violence,' said Tim Young, a CDC employee who retired in April.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
20 minutes ago
- The Independent
AI could soon detect early voice box cancer from the sound of your voice
AI could soon be able to tell whether patients have cancer of the voice box using just a voice note, according to new research. Scientists recorded the voices of men with and without abormalities in their vocal folds - which can be an early sign of laryngeal cancer - and found differences in vocal qualities including pitch, volume, and clarity. They now say AI could be used to detect these 'vocal biomarkers', leading to earlier, less invasive diagnosis. Researchers at Oregon Health and Science University believe voice notes could now be used to train an AI tool that recognises vocal fold lesions. Using 12,523 voice recordings from 306 participants across North America, they found distinctive vocal differences in men suffering from laryngeal cancer, men with vocal fold lesions, and men with healthy vocal folds. However, researchers said similar hallmark differences were not detected in women. They are now hoping to collect more recordings of people with and without the distinctive vocal fold lesions to create a bigger dataset for tools to work from. In the UK, there are more than 2,000 new cases of laryngeal cancer each year. Symptoms can include a change in your voice, such as sounding hoarse, a high-pitched wheezing noise when you breathe, and a long-lasting cough. 'Here we show that with this dataset we could use vocal biomarkers to distinguish voices from patients with vocal fold lesions from those without such lesions,' said Dr Phillip Jenkins, the study's corresponding author said. 'To move from this study to an AI tool that recognises vocal fold lesions, we would train models using an even larger dataset of voice recordings, labeled by professionals. We then need to test the system to make sure it works equally well for women and men. 'Voice-based health tools are already being piloted. Building on our findings, I estimate that with larger datasets and clinical validation, similar tools to detect vocal fold lesions might enter pilot testing in the next couple of years," he predicted. It comes after research from US-based Klick Labs, which created an AI model capable of distinguishing whether a person has Type 2 diabetes from six to 10 seconds of voice audio. The study involved analysing 18,000 recordings in order to identify acoustic features that differentiated non diabetics from diabetics and reported an 89 per cent accuracy rating for women and 86 per cent for men. Jaycee Kaufman, a research scientist at Klick Labs, praised the future potential for AI-powered voice tools in healthcare, saying: 'Current methods of detection can require a lot of time, travel and cost. Voice technology has the potential to remove these barriers entirely.'
The Independent
20 minutes ago
- The Independent
Los Angeles schools are prepping ‘safe zones' to keep ICE agents away as students return to classroom
Los Angeles city schools are ready with unprecedented protections to keep federal immigration authorities away as students return to the classroom. School police, other officers and volunteer 'scouts' will patrol some 100 schools that are part of the nation's second-largest school system in hopes of keeping the district's 400,000 students – and their families – out of reach from ICE. "Our young people are going through this unnecessary trauma, which should not interfere with their education,' Mayor Karen Bass said. Officers, both employed by the schools and surrounding municipalities, will establish 'safe zones' in neighborhoods with a large Latino population, focusing specifically on watching out for older students who walk to class, according to the Los Angeles Times. Bus routes have also been altered to help immigrant families avoid ICE agents during their commute, officials said. Additionally, community volunteers will take on the role of scouts, alerting schools to nearby ICE agents so they can take necessary precautions, including potentially locking down the campus. The initiatives, a collaboration between city and school officials, come at what Bass described as a 'profound' moment in American history. Other programs the district is taking include coordinating food aid for families in hiding, providing information about online schooling options and distributing a 'family preparedness' guide detailing their rights. L.A. schools superintendent Alberto Carvalho, once an undocumented immigrant himself, said the district will oppose 'any entity, at any level, that seeks to interfere with the educational process of our children. "We want no one to stay home as a result of fears," Carvalho said. 'We are standing on the right side of the Constitution, and years from now, I guarantee you, we will have stood on the right side of history. We know that,' he said. Officials' worries are not unfounded. On Monday, a 15-year-old boy with disabilities was handcuffed outside Arleta High School. Federal agents drew their guns on the teen, who was later released after his relatives convinced federal agents he was not who they were looking for. A spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection told the Times that the school was not being targeted; rather, agents believed they were going after a 'criminal illegal alien' and suspected MS-13 gang member. The 2024-2025 school year ended in L.A. as immigration raids targeting workplaces broke out across the city. The raids left parents scrambling to check apps dedicated to tracking ICE activity during important moments, such as their children's graduation ceremony, the Los Angeles Times reported at the time. Agents have also targeted homes with children who attend L.A. County schools. Mary, a mother of three without legal status, said she knew what to do when ICE agents came to her door twice in May because of what she learned from her local public school. ICE agents — often dressed in plainclothes and driving unmarked vehicles — raided L.A. County businesses and homes this past June, and were often spotted near schools, too, sparking widespread panic and disruption of daily life. The raids led to massive protests and prompted President Donald Trump to deploy 700 U.S. Marines and 4,000 National Guard troops to try and bring order to the city. It was the first time the National Guard had been ordered by the president, not the state, since 1965. That escalation led to over 2,000 'No Kings' protests against the Trump administration's policies in all 50 states, from California to Maine. The demonstrations coincided with a D.C. parade for the U.S. Army's 250th anniversary, which critics blasted as just an extravagant birthday party for Trump. While litigation, including a temporary restraining order, appears to have slowed down immigration raids in L.A., local leaders believe they haven't stopped completely.
The Independent
20 minutes ago
- The Independent
An Uber ride that should've taken 23 minutes became a nightmare — and she's not alone: ‘Attacks every 8 minutes'
In May 2021, an intoxicated Oklahoma woman called an Uber to take her home from her niece's engagement party. Although the ride should have only taken 23 minutes, when she woke up hours later, she wasn't home, but seated behind the steering wheel of a strange car, with her underwear in her purse and her jeans on inside out. Her mind blurred with confusion and her body covered in bruises, she went to the hospital and was given a sexual assault examination, according to a civil lawsuit against Uber and the driver, seen by The Independent. Authorities charged the driver, Timothy Alexander Greene, in June 2021. A jury convicted him of sexual battery two years later, court records show, and he is serving a 10-year prison sentence. The woman's horrifying assault in a ride-share vehicle is far from an isolated incident. 'Especially with solo female passengers, this is a huge problem in the industry,' Jim Mitchell, one of the attorneys representing the Oklahoma woman, told The Independent. 'Safety is a core value at Uber, and we have invested billions of dollars and countless hours to reduce safety incidents during trips, particularly when it comes to sexual misconduct and assault,' the company said in a statement on its website. Across the country, passengers have shared claims of misconduct that took place in Uber rides. In Utah, a woman on her way home was subjected to unwanted touching. In California, a driver touched himself as a female passenger vomited. In Texas, a 20-minute ride turned into a five-hour ordeal and an alleged rape at a motel. While Uber touts its safety record — and the company has implemented a string of features to protect passengers and drivers since its inception — allegations detailed in thousands of legal cases, internal company documents, and stories on social media underscore that staying safe in ride-shares is still an issue. Uber received reports of sexual misconduct every eight minutes from U.S. riders from 2017 through 2022, documents first reported by The New York Times revealed this week. Over six years, that totaled more than 400,000 Uber trips in the U.S. resulting in reports of sexual assault and sexual misconduct, according to the report. Uber's 2022 safety report disclosed 12,522 sexual assault and misconduct reports over the same time period. The tech company addressed the large discrepancy in a statement posted on the company website Wednesday after the Times published its report. The 'vast majority' of the hundreds of thousands of misconduct reports were 'less serious and non-physical in nature,' like flirting or staring, Hannah Nilles, Uber's Head of Safety for the Americas, wrote. Most of these 400,000-plus reports have not been subjected to a 'rigorous' process that vets allegations and weeds out false reports made 'with the goal of getting a refund,' Nilles continued. Uber claims that 99.99 percent of trips end without any issue. Roughly 0.006 percent of the 6.3 billion trips in the U.S. in the six-year span ended with a sexual misconduct or assault report, according to Nilles. The most serious reports accounted for 0.00002 percent — or 1 in 5 million trips — she said. The vast majority of sexual misconduct reports between 2017-2022 were made by female drivers or riders. Women represented 89 percent of survivors, according to the company's 2022 safety has not released a safety report since. The Independent has asked the company why this is the case. Uber identified other patterns in the sexual assault report data, according to internal documents seen by the Times. Incidents tended to occur late at night and on weekends with pick-ups near bars. The company has implemented a series of safety measures over the past several years. 'RideCheck' uses GPS tracking to detect whether the ride stays on course, pinging drivers and riders to ensure they're safe. There's also a 'Follow My Ride' feature that allows riders to share their trips so loved ones can track. But Uber acknowledges the features' limitations. 'No single safety feature or policy is going to prevent unpredictable incidents from happening on Uber, or in our world,' Nilles told the Times. In one case, what should have been a 20-minute trip became a harrowing five-hour ordeal that culminated in an alleged rape, The Times reported. A woman in Houston requested an Uber in December 2023. The driver picked her up at 8.53 p.m. at an apartment complex to take her to a house 22 minutes away. But the driver took a detour to a gas station around 9.10 p.m., the records show. That's when Uber sent a ping to check in on the woman, who didn't respond. By 9.29 p.m., the car continued to veer off the requested course and instead stopped at a motel. The company notified the woman again, and again, it went unanswered. Minutes later, Uber tried to get in touch with her with a robocall, to which she also didn't respond. The driver didn't mark the trip as complete until 2.01 a.m. Three hours later, the woman called Uber, claiming that she had been intoxicated and woke up in a motel with the driver, who had raped her, the Times reported. Uber banned the driver immediately after the alleged attack. An investigation into him the following month revealed a 'a concerning fact pattern' that included two previous accusations of sexual misconduct for inappropriate comments. The three missed contact attempts served as a potential signal that something could have gone wrong in the trip, the documents said. The report asked: 'Are our actions (or lack of actions) defensible?' In Oklahoma, when charges were brought against Uber driver Greene in 2021, the State Bureau of Investigation warned that there may be other survivors. Authorities had 'reason to believe other women could also have been assaulted by the ride-share driver.' It appears that investigators found another survivor. Last June, Oklahoma County District Attorney's Office brought another charge against Greene, accusing him of raping a woman in July 2019 while he was driving for Lyft, court records show. He has pleaded not guilty and is next due in court on August 20. An attorney for Greene declined to comment on the ongoing cases. The woman filed a police report and contacted Lyft to report the alleged incident. Greene was booted from the platform, the 2021 civil suit says. Greene then allegedly engaged in 'platform hopping,' jumping over to Uber after being deactivated from Lyft, said Mitchell, who also represents the woman. In March 2021, Lyft and Uber launched the Industry Sharing Safety Program which allows both companies to share information about drivers who were banned from the other's platform for sexual or physical assaults. "Any act of violence or assault has no place in the Lyft community or our society. When an incident is reported to us, our trained team takes immediate action to investigate, provides our support to the victim, and works with law enforcement on any investigation. With regard to the Oklahoma case, we were made aware of the allegations against the driver in June of 2019, and we immediately and permanently banned him from ever driving on the Lyft platform again. At that time we also provided support to the rider, and assisted law enforcement with their investigation,' a Lyft spokesperson told The Independent. Since Uber issued its first safety report for 2017 and 2018, the rate of reported sexual assaults has declined 44 percent, according to the company's latest report. Meanwhile, hundreds of plaintiffs across 29 states have joined a class action lawsuit against the ride-share giant. More than 2,435 cases are pending in the multidistrict litigation against Uber for activity described in the Times article, lead attorneys Rachel Abrams, Sarah London, and Roopal Luhana told The Independent in a statement. There are an additional 621 cases brought in California under a related proceeding. 'We look forward to litigating these claims in Court on behalf of the brave survivors who have come forward to seek justice from a company that has put profits over safety,' the attorneys said. The cases are scheduled to go to trial in December. Lyft, Uber's ride-share rival, also disclosed thousands of sexual misconduct reports from 2017 through 2022. In that period, there were 6,809 reports, accounting for 0.0002 percent of rides, according to Lyft's 2022 safety report. On social media, women have also been sharing their disturbing stories. One TikToker, xknowlsallpodcast, alleged she was sexually assaulted in 2016 in San Francisco. Intoxicated, she got in an Uber and immediately started feeling sick. She threw up a little on the car's central console. The driver then stopped the car and asked what she was doing, she recalled. The rider then opened the door and continued to vomit. The driver walked around to her side of the car. He then took off his pants and started touching himself, she said. She then ran out of the car, hid behind a nearby house, and called another Uber. Later, she looked at her Uber receipts to find that her second ride picked her up far from where she wanted to go. She had ordered a car to take her from a holiday party in downtown San Francisco to her home in the northern part of the city. Instead, she said, her receipts showed that she was south, near the airport. 'When I look at my Uber receipts, the first car that was supposed to take me downtown to my house was cancelled,' the woman said in the video. 'My theory is this driver saw me, he saw how intoxicated I was, he saw an opportunity to hurt me, and he cancelled the ride when I got into his car.' When she reported the incident to Uber, the company told her that she got into the wrong car that night, the TikToker recalled. She also said that this was a possibility. Since then, she said she shares her rides with her friends and 'never, ever, ever get into a car by myself intoxicated like that.' The Independent has asked Uber about the alleged incident but received no response. In Utah, a Facebook user said she called an Uber to take her home in August 2021. The driver reached into the backseat where she was sitting and started 'repeatedly touching and rubbing' her leg, despite her pleas for him to stop, she wrote in a social media post. When she tried to exit, he locked the door, she claimed. She eventually got to her destination after telling him that family members were expecting her. The woman contacted Uber about the incident, she said, and urged other riders to share their locations when using a ride-share. The driver was banned from the platform, Uber told The Independent. Safety issues extend to female drivers as well. And due to the media attention around ride-share assaults, attracting female drivers has become a challenge. 'Safety has ranked as one of the top reasons for prospective female drivers to not join Uber, and for current female drivers to not drive during certain hours of the day,' an internal document, seen by the Times, stated. Uber rolled out an experimental program that matched female riders with female drivers in Saudi Arabia in 2019 and found an 'overwhelmingly positive response,' the company said. It has since replicated the feature in 40 countries. The company had planned to launch the same program in the U.S. in November, but Donald Trump's election victory prompted executives to rethink the timing of the rollout. 'This is not the right environment to launch, and we want to take a beat to assess our timing,' an internal document, reported by The Times, stated. The Independent has asked Uber about the decision. Last month, Uber announced that the 'Women Preferences' option for riders and drivers will become available in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Detroit starting 'in the next few weeks.' Lyft rolled out a similar program — 'Women + Connect' — last September, giving women and nonbinary riders and drivers the option to be paired. The company has since expanded the program nationwide.
