The anti-vax chickens come home to roost in shooting at CDC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Is America great yet?
The war of political invective and insanity hit the streets of America on Friday afternoon on Clifton Road.
A gunman, reportedly with mental health issues and deep grievances, set up near a drugstore and let loose a barrage at a target that MAGA adherents have been aiming at for years: The CDC, which is across the street.
A rookie cop did his duty in rushing to the scene, trying to negate a serious threat to society. DeKalb County police Officer David Rose, a Marine who served in Afghanistan, had two children and a pregnant wife who will never see him walk through the front door again.
Credit: DeKalb County police
The Atlantic magazine quoted a veteran CDC employee saying, “I’m actually surprised it didn’t happen sooner.”
For years, the CDC has been ground zero on a war on institutions, expertise and even reality. Frustration and fear that was generated during the pandemic festered into anger and distrust of government, medicine and science.
Remember, this was once President Donald Trump’s vaccine. In December 2020, he spoke proudly of Operation Warp Speed, the drive to quickly develop COVID vaccine as a “monumental national achievement.”
“In order to achieve this goal, we harnessed the full power of government, the genius of American scientists, and the might of American industry to save millions and millions of lives all over the world,” he gushed.
But that was then.
Trump, and those around him, realized it was more beneficial to tap into the anger surrounding mask mandates, prolonged school shutdowns and even against the vaccines he once praised.
The CDC became the face of a malignant wave. The politics of nihilism rode that surge, fed by an army of online “experts” who do their own research and amplified disinformation.
The high priest of this campaign is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the movement’s Anti-Vaxxer In Chief. Somehow, in this new twisted world we now inhabit, he’s the Health and Human Services secretary, the person charged with overseeing the nation’s health, including the CDC.
On Saturday, he released a statement saying: “We want everyone to know, you’re not alone. Leadership is in close coordination with CDC teams to ensure support is available on the ground.”
This came only after criticism that he largely ignored this attack. Before he registered his concern about his employees, he posted on his social media account photos of himself holding a giant salmon on a fishing trip with Alaska tribal elders.
That figures. His concern for the CDC as an institution, or even its longtime employees as human beings, seems to be questionable. At best.
A year ago, while running for president he vowed to “clean up the cesspool of corruption at CDC.” In 2021, researchers cited Kennedy as a member of the “The Disinformation Dozen,” a list of 12 influential people who produce the majority of the anti-vaccine misinformation on social media.
That, sadly, is what gets you a cabinet position these days.
Enter the late Patrick Joseph White into this equation. White, a 30-year-old Kennesaw resident, was apparently depressed and worried that COVID vaccine had damaged him and others, a neighbor told the AJC.
There are many distrusting Americans like him who have gone to social media to castigate the CDC and assert other public health officials are criminals.
Social media can now misinform and radicalize people better than ever. And simultaneously, easy access to firepower can turn confused people or twisted misanthropes into efficient killers.
A video taken from the scene records about 30 shots from a semiautomatic rifle in less than 15 seconds. The monolithic glass CDC complex, which had its security enhanced a couple decades ago, is a huge target. Bullets struck four buildings, the CDC said.
The CDC being located in Atlanta was always a point of civic pride. It’s only in recent years that the institution has been under fire, both figuratively and now literally.
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Abigail Tighe, a CDC employee who was laid off this year in the meat cleaver that Kennedy swung at the agency, expressed her emotions this weekend to my colleague, Ariel Hart. Her worry during the attack didn’t stop with concern for former co-workers. Her child was enrolled in a day care there.
“I’m so angry and annoyed and frustrated,” Tighe said. “I’ve been fired, I’ve been targeted, I’ve been villainized. And now they’re shooting at my kid’s day care.”
She added the administration and other partisans “are responsible for this. They have been sowing so much hatred for CDC, for civil servants, that it is not surprising that someone would be emboldened to attack the CDC at all.”
CDC employees were told by email to work remotely and to remove CDC stickers and decals from their vehicles, just to be safe, the New York Times reported.
Who knows what other seething creeps are out there?
The CDC attack brings to mind the 1958 Atlanta Temple bombing and the reaction by The Atlanta Constitution’s editor, Ralph McGill.
Credit: DWIGHT ROSS / AJC File
“This is a harvest. It is the crop of things sown,“ he wrote. ”It is an old, old story. It is one repeated over and over again in history. When the wolves of hate are loosed on one people, then no one is safe.”
It was a condemnation not only of the purveyors of that 1958 attack (no one was killed, thankfully) but also of good people who had stood back and said nothing.
Very few on the right have taken to task aggressive disinformation campaigns targeting the CDC and the national response to the pandemic.
It might be time.
Follow the AJC’s coverage of the shooting at the CDC
A man opened fire on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday, killing a police officer who tried to stop him, authorities said. Check back with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for the latest breaking news, updates and insights on the developing news.
Here is the latest to catch up on:
Live updates as details of the shooting emerged
Learn about the officer who died: DeKalb officer killed in CDC shooting had close ties to Emory community
A year of trauma: Shooting is yet another blow to CDC workers and alumni
A possible motive: CDC gunman might have been driven by mistrust of vaccines
Neighbors of CDC shooting suspect recall erratic behavior, no signs of violence
DeKalb officer becomes 4th from Georgia killed in line of duty this year
Reaction: Georgia politicians react to CDC shooting
About the Author
Bill Torpy, who writes about metro Atlanta for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, joined the newspaper in 1990.
