ATLANTA — Investigators on Tuesday said they recovered more than 500 shell casings from the scene of last week’s chaotic shooting outside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The disturbing detail, which illuminated the dramatic scope of Friday’s attack, was among several updates released by law enforcement.
DeKalb County police Officer David Rose was killed while responding to the incident. The gunman died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, law enforcement said, adding that they later found a document “that expressed the shooter’s discontent with the COVID-19 vaccinations.”
Bullets damaged numerous windows at the CDC’s Atlanta campus, and employees there are teleworking this week.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday released a driver’s license photograph of the shooter, Patrick Joseph White.
The 30-year-old from Kennesaw was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on the second floor of a CVS across the street from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to law enforcement.
GBI Director Chris Hosey said the agency does not want to “publicize” the shooter, “but we do see the importance of that photograph being put out.”
He asked that the public remember Rose in the coming week, especially.
Hosey said nearly 200 rounds struck six separate CDC buildings during the barrage of gunfire.
The weapons used included a mixture of rifles, a shotgun and a handgun that belonged to White’s father, authorities said. All of the guns had been secured in White’s home before the 30-year-old “forced his way into the safe that contained the weapons.”
The majority of shell casings recovered from the shooting scene were from a long gun, Hosey told reporters, noting that White’s family is cooperating with the investigation.
Cobb County police records show that White previously stole one of his father’s guns last September. Kenneth White called officers to his home to report that his son was suicidal, the police report states.
“Patrick stated he did take a gun from his father but it was unloaded and that it was only a cry for help,” the report states.
