Employees at the US government’s top public health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, were winding down their Friday when bullets smashed through their office windows, whizzing just over their cubicle walls.
Across the street from the CDC campus, a gunman had opened fire on its buildings, bringing panic to the to the upscale Atlanta neighborhood and the sprawling, open-access campus of Emory University that is adjacent to it.
“Active shooter on Emory Atlanta Campus at Emory Point CVS. RUN, HIDE, FIGHT. Avoid the area. Continue shelter in place. Police on scene,” said a statement from the university.
The shooting began just before 5 p.m. at the Emory Point CVS drugstore on Clifton Road, directly across from the main entrance to the CDC.
Residents and students on their way home and parents picking up children from day care were caught in a tense lockdown that stretched into the night.
Police sirens blared across the area as officers responded.
One of them, Dekalb County officer David Rose, was killed.
The gunman, as yet unidentified, was found dead on the second floor of the CVS store. He was struck by gunfire, but police could not say if it came from officers or the gunman himself.
In the CDC offices, employees said the situation could have been much worse.
Photos viewed by CNN taken from inside one CDC building depict bullet holes in windows and shattered glass on the floor. The images show that rounds of ammunition flew just above a line of office cubicles where employees sit.
“It’s a miracle no one was killed here,” one CDC employee told CNN.
Authorities have not confirmed a motive, but sources told CNN the shooter may have targeted the CDC over personal health concerns he blamed on the Covid-19 vaccine.
Here’s what we know.
The gunman was firing at the CDC complex when an officer pulled up. The shooter turned his aim from the CDC complex to the officer, a law enforcement source told CNN’s Ryan Young.
The officer, identified as David Rose, 33, later died at Emory University Hospital.
Hayes Parsa, 17, saw Rose fighting for his life in hospital.
Parsa was leaving the Emory University Hospital and waiting for a bus when he got the emergency alert on his phone saying, “run, hide, fight.”
“I didn’t know exactly what was happening,” he told CNN affiliate WSB. “A cop car pulled into the ER slot, and I guess a cop had been shot.”
“It was horrible seeing him … they were doing CPR on him and they brought him inside.”
Parsa ran back inside the hospital and witnessed staff doing chest compression on the officers, saying “I prayed for him immediately.”
Rose joined the department in September 2024 and leaves behind a wife and two children, with another on the way.
“He was committed to serving the community,” said interim Police Chief Greg Padrick, “At this time we’re asking for the community’s prayers for his family, his friends, his loved ones and the entire DeKalb County Police Department family.”
FBI Director Kash Patel said Rose was a hero who “made the ultimate sacrifice.”
“Pray for the family, friends, and colleagues of this hero who acted quickly to defend others and made the ultimate sacrifice,” Patel said in a post on X.
After speaking with family members of the suspect, police are operating under the hypothesis he was either sick or believed that he was sick and blamed the illness on the Covid-19 vaccine, a law enforcement official told CNN.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said the alleged shooter “is a known person that may have some interest in certain things that I can’t reiterate right now with any confidence until the investigation is fully conducted.”
CDC Director Susan Monarez said on X the shooter fired on at least four buildings.
The gunman was wearing what appeared to be a surgical mask and was armed with two handguns, a rifle, a shotgun and two backpacks filled with ammo, according to law enforcement sources.
The chaos touched many people including Randy Gold, who was leaving an elevator at Emory Hospital and rolling to the exit with his father, just discharged on a wheelchair, when they encountered doctors, nurses and valet parkers running toward them and “screaming there was an active shooter.”
At that point, Gold told CNN, nobody knew where that was happening, but they all went into sheltering mode.
“We sort of ducked,” he said as he was sheltering along with five or six people in the hospital’s radiology reading room. The only information they had at that moment was that the entire hospital was in lockdown, and what they learned while watching CNN as the incident developed.
Around campus, people were also trying to get a sense of what was happening.
Casey Cooksey, an employee of Emory University’s IT Department, told CNN affiliate WXIA, he heard “lots of gunfire” and described the scene as “total fear for everybody.”
“We had no idea where it was coming from, but it was pretty close. We thought it may be in our building.”
“It was just a bunch of rapid fire. It was a minute before we heard any sirens. It was just a lot of loud shooting.”
Roads near the Emory Point CVS, where the active shooter was located, were “like a ghost town,” and police stopped vehicles from driving closer, Kristin Coles told CNN affiliate WSB.
Anxious for her one-and-a-half-year-old son who was at a day care center across the CVS, she drove as far as she could before police stopped her and walked about a mile to get closer.
Coles said her wife went to pick their son up, but they were separated in different classrooms due to the lockdown situation.
“I’m just trying to get to them as quickly as I can,” Coles said, stressing she has never experienced anything like this before.
“It just speaks to a lot of what needs to be done to keep our kids safe. This is ridiculous.”
There were also 92 children in a day care on the CDC campus, and all of them were safe, said Atlanta Mayor Dickens.
The violent episode in the country’s top public health institute has added an unsettling new chapter to what has been a turbulent period for the CDC and its staff.
Dickens said CDC employees have “had a tough go of it in the past year.”
“My heart goes out to you,” the mayor said.
“We are with you. We stand with you, and we’re doing everything we can to make sure that we bring resolve to the situation.”
He referenced the “uncertainty” around CDC staff’s employment following massive workforce cuts at federal health agencies.
The agency has lost nearly a quarter of its staff since January. The Trump administration’s proposed budget for the fiscal year 2026 would slash the agency’s funding by more than half.
Under the proposed reorganization, the CDC would lose additional programs. Some would be transferred to a new Administration for a Healthy America, while others – such as the National Center for Chronic Disease and Health Promotion – would be eliminated entirely.
