After CDC shooting, its employees turn their anger to RFK Jr. and Trump
long-running fears that the backlash to their work during the coronavirus pandemic could turn deadly. Some left the field after a vitriolic response to mandates for masking and vaccination. Armed protesters gathered outside the homes of health officials. Some health officials faced death threats, including Anthony S. Fauci, one of the leaders of the federal coronavirus response.
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Days after the shooting, the initial shock has morphed into anger for many CDC employees, according to interviews with more than a dozen of them, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.
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They fault President Trump for not publicly condemning the shooting, even as he invoked the assault of a former US DOGE Service staffer to deploy troops in D.C. and take over its police department. They said they are fed up with how they and their work are being derided and impugned by conservatives and anti-vaccine activists, including the one who rose to lead the nation's public health apparatus: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
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Before joining the government, Kennedy falsely called the coronavirus vaccine the 'deadliest vaccine ever made' and said it contained a 'poison.' During his unsuccessful presidential campaign last year, Kennedy posted on X: 'As President, I will clean up the cesspool of corruption at CDC and force the public health agencies to come clean about Covid vaccines. I'll hold responsible those who lied or concealed critical health information …'
Now the nation's top health official, Kennedy has moved to limit the use of coronavirus vaccines, fired the CDC's vaccine advisers and last week canceled research into the mRNA technology that made those vaccines' rapid development possible, citing misleading or false claims.
In response to the shooting, Kennedy offered condolences in written statements. 'No one should face violence while working to protect the health of others,' he posted Saturday on X.
On Monday, he ordered flags at HHS buildings to fly at half-staff to honor the slain officer and visited the Atlanta headquarters, where several buildings were still pocked with bullet holes. A dozen current and former employees stood across the street protesting his arrival, pelted by light rainfall as they held up signs condemning him and praising their agency's work.
'I have never worked on anything nefarious. We are public servants,' said Lauren Owens, a CDC scientist who joined the protest during her lunch break, holding a sign that read, 'RFK Jr's lies about vax safety + CDC scientists endanger us ALL.'
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In all, 181 rounds were fired at the campus, nearly half concentrated on a building housing administrative offices and the CDC director's office, three senior CDC officials told The Washington Post. Broken glass littered some floors. Bullets struck 150 windows, which were built to resist bomb implosion or pressure but not ammunition, an agency official said. Most of the windows at the security station at the main entrance to the CDC were also struck.
For some, the assault on the CDC came as no surprise.
'There is a direct line from the vilification of CDC during Covid and the deliberate lies and mis/disinformation that continues today,' a veteran CDC official who was not on campus during the shooting said in a text message. 'Many of the sources of these lies now have a pulpit and the veneer of respectability through their positions in the administration.'
It is unclear what influenced the accused gunman's views on coronavirus vaccines, whether he had ever been exposed to Kennedy's messaging or whether unrelated factors played into the shooting. Still, the frustrated CDC employees said the shooting should have been a wake-up call to Kennedy to disavow his previous rhetoric about the agency.
'Secretary Kennedy remains committed to reforming our health agencies so that they are more transparent, more accountable, and ultimately more trusted by the American people and the public servants working for them,' Andrew Nixon, an HHS spokesman, said in a statement. 'That mission will continue with zero tolerance for violence in any form.'
The fraught environment for public health is why one CDC scientist whose work involves vaccines chose not to enroll her toddler in a day care near the campus, despite its convenient location and hours.
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Her fears were validated Friday afternoon as she felt something whiz by her right shoulder as she walked out of the building where staff work on respiratory diseases. The crisp staccato of the pops made her realize it was bullets. The gunman was firing over the roof of the day care facility, according to CDC employees.
The scientist ran back into the building, hid in an office with three colleagues and barricaded the door with bookcases. A SWAT team later moved them into a conference room where about 100 employees sheltered. In conversations, some workers speculated that their vaccine work placed a target on their backs.
To her frustration, Trump and the White House have yet to publicly acknowledge the deadly assault on a federal building.
'Would they have said anything if it was ICE or FBI or a more politically aligned agency? For some reason, they think it's acceptable for CDC scientists to come under fire like this,' the employee said. 'When we see that silence, it only implies complicity.'
A White House spokesman did not answer questions about its lack of public statements about the shooting, but offered condolences to CDC employees and the family of the slain officer.
'The White House and HHS were in immediate coordination as this senseless tragedy unfolded, and Secretary Kennedy's visit to Atlanta today to meet with CDC staff underscores the Administration's commitment to doing everything we can to support the CDC,' spokesman Kush Desai wrote in a statement.
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'A lot of people who believe this'
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Authorities have said little about White beyond identifying him as 30 and from Kennesaw, which is about an hour drive from Atlanta. They did not say whether he had mental health issues.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which is leading the investigation, did not comment for this article.
White left a note, according to a CDC employee who attended a Saturday briefing about the shooting with senior agency leaders, but the contents were not shared.
White's neighbors in a suburban community with large yards and two-story homes described him as friendly. He lived with his parents, mowed communal grass and walked dogs.
A person who answered the door at White's home Sunday declined to comment, and relatives also did not return multiple calls and a note left at his home Monday.
Nancy Hoalst, who recalled a nearly two-hour conversation with White on her porch about the coronavirus vaccine, said he shared his concerns as if he was proselytizing a religious belief and trying to save her from a conspiracy. He vented that no one would believe him even though he did his research.
The overall skepticism of the vaccine didn't faze Hoalst. 'There are a lot of people who believe this,' Hoalst said.
What made White different, she said, was how he believed he was a victim of the vaccine. He blamed the shots for his stomach problems and difficulties eating that left him very skinny and afraid for his life.
Hoalst said she spoke to other neighbors who heard White express similar concerns.
White told an officer in September 2024 that he was in pain and that his health had been bad ever since he got a coronavirus vaccine, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported, citing incident reports.
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Kennesaw is a conservative community where every household is required by law to have a firearm, according to the city's website.
The community is represented in Congress by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right lawmaker who has repeatedly falsely attributed deaths and injuries to the coronavirus vaccine. Greene's office did not return a request for comment.
The CDC says coronavirus vaccines are safe, effective and help prevent hospitalization and death, while saving millions of lives globally in the pandemic.
But trust in the agency also eroded after the pandemic, according to polling, and uptake of annual coronavirus shots has become paltry.
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'A long time coming'
In a Saturday email to HHS staff addressing the shooting, Kennedy praised the CDC's work.
'This is a reminder of the very human challenges public servants sometimes face - even in places dedicated to healing and progress,' Kennedy wrote. 'But it also reinforces the importance of the work you do every day. From public health labs to data systems to community programs, your efforts matter.'
The email rang hollow to some employees after the extensive cuts to the agency's staff and budget and overhaul of long-standing vaccine policy under Kennedy's leadership.
'He's constantly undermining our vaccine work,' said Anna Yousaf, a CDC physician who has researched the effects of coronavirus vaccines and spoke at a Sunday rally condemning the shooting. 'So for him to say your work is important is really just a slap in the face. There's no acknowledgment at all that he could have said less villainizing things about CDC.'
On Monday, the CDC began promoting a fundraiser to benefit the family of David Rose, the 33-year-old DeKalb County police officer killed in the shooting. Kennedy visited the police department on Monday and met its chief and Rose's widow, according to HHS. In tributes to Rose, some noted he lived true to the values he espoused in a March graduation speech for his police academy class.
'From the very first day, we learned that policing isn't just about enforcing the law, it's about protecting the vulnerable, standing for justice, and being the person who runs towards danger when others run away,' Rose said.
CDC employees and others have left flowers and a teddy bear at a memorial for Rose outside the entrance to the CDC headquarters. The memorial is on the same corner where an activist usually stands holding anti-vaccine signs.
One CDC worker who visited the memorial Sunday said even before the shooting, she had thought about how she could fit behind filing cabinets to protect herself. She had left the office less than an hour
before the shooting began.
'It just feels like this was in the making, and it was a long time coming,' she said.
In the aftermath of the shooting, agency officials have advised employees to remove CDC decals from their cars. Workers are weighing whether to go even further.
Some CDC employees who are also members of the U.S. Public Health Service no longer want to wear their military-style uniforms in public.
A few are fearful of having their names attached to vaccine data presentations available online.
One staff member may remove a 'Save the CDC' sign from her yard to protest budget cuts, worrying she is putting her family at risk.
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Sun reported from Washington.
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