The morning after: Community reacts to CDC shooting, emergency that ensued

Emory University lifted its shelter-in-place order at 7:38 a.m. Saturday.

A few security guards roamed the CDC entrance. A private security guard circled the Emory Point shopping center where the gunman had shot into the CVS.

A few signs of Friday’s tragedy remained. The door of the CVS was marked with two bullet holes and bright yellow signs reading “store closed until further notice” hang on both entrances.

Credit: Hyosub Shin

Credit: Hyosub Shin

At the base of the CVS stairs facing the CDC, which the gunman had run down as he shot across the street, someone had placed a bouquet of pink tulips.

Across the street, the security center at the CDC entrance bore four bullet holes, their spiderweb cracks clouding the glass and blurring the guards inside.

CDC’s building 21 was littered with bullet holes — about 40 shots hit its floor-to-ceiling glass window panes, scattered across the building’s facade.

Dance 101, the dance studio across the street from CVS, stayed dark Friday night after an employee on her way to open the studio came face to face with the shooter. Saturday morning, though, the music was back and classes carried on as usual with around 60 people filling the studio.

Ofelia deLaValette, owner of Dance 101, was not at the studio Friday evening, but came in Saturday morning.

“We’ve been in a frenzy since it happened,” she said. “Hopefully, things can reset. It’s so disturbing. Our hearts are just so heavy, and we have lots of questions we don’t know.”

“Being across from the CDC, we are not strangers to things happening and protests and picketing and with all the controversy unfortunately surrounding the institution,” deLaValette added.