A bullet hole is visible in the door of a CVS pharmacy on Aug. 9, 2025, near where police say a man was shooting at the HQ of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. | Jeff Amy/AP

Employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now fear going to work after a gunman sprayed bullets at the agency’s Atlanta headquarters Friday evening, three agency staffers said.

“Even the ones who weren’t in lockdown for seven hours and are ridiculously traumatized … even everybody else, I’m getting questions about ‘Are our windows bulletproof? And what about the areas without cell reception?’,” one of the staffers said. They were granted anonymity for fear of retribution.

Some employees blamed Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for spreading vaccine misinformation, which, they say, may have villainized the CDC in the eyes of some. Some media outlets have reported that the suspected shooter, 30-year-old Patrick White, believed that the Covid-19 vaccine made him sick. White died at the scene, authorities said.

No CDC employees were injured. DeKalb County Police Officer David Rose was shot and killed while responding to the incident.

Kennedy visited the agency’s headquarters Monday to survey the damage, HHS said. He was joined by newly confirmed CDC Director Susan Monarez.

The staffer said employees are closely watching how Monarez, who was sworn in late last month, will speak to staff about the shooting at an agencywide meeting Tuesday.

“I hope that she is using her voice, internally and frankly externally, as our brand new leader,” the staffer said.

The incident comes amid an already tumultuous time for CDC staff. In April, the administration sent termination notices to hundreds of CDC employees, and the Trump administration has proposed slashing the agency’s budget by roughly half.

In a statement, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said Kennedy “unequivocally condemned the horrific attack and remains fully committed to ensuring the safety and well-being of CDC employees.”

Securing the CDC

The agency has decided to extend telework for a week to everyone who works from CDC campuses located in Atlanta, the first staffer said. It’s still unclear when employees will be expected to return to the agency’s Edward R. Roybal campus, which sustained extensive damage. Bullets shattered its windows and law enforcement broke doors and locks to clear the area. Employees at other campuses can return to work Tuesday or continue to work remotely for the rest of the week if they choose to, a second staffer based in a campus outside Atlanta confirmed to POLITICO.

“The campus is not going to feel ready for us to come back to, and we want to make sure that it feels ready and feels safe for us to get back there at some point,” said Christa Capozzola, the agency’s acting chief operating officer, on a call with agency staff Saturday. POLITICO obtained a partial recording of the call.

The agency is conducting a “full security assessment,” Monarez said on the call.

“It’s obvious that at all levels, from a law enforcement, security standpoint, on the ground, there’s a lot of work being done,” the first staffer said.

A third staffer said that they had concerns about the immediate response to the shooter.

“It seems to me that the only reason this was not orders of magnitude worse is simply because the shooter picked Friday at 5,” the third staffer said.

Even so, the second staffer noted that aspects of the response had gone right, including security turning the gunman away at the gate after he tried to drive onto the agency’s campus. The gunman shot at the agency headquarters from across the street, authorities have said.

Backlash hits Kennedy

The staffers also told POLITICO that they had hoped for a more robust response from Kennedy.

“I think most of us would very much like the next message we hear from him to begin with ‘I hereby resign,’” a fourth staffer told POLITICO in a text. “The secretary is being widely (and accurately) blamed for spreading disinformation about vaccines that helped poison the mind of a disturbed individual.”

Dr. Elizabeth Soda, an infectious disease doctor with the CDC’s Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, also called for Kennedy to step down at a rally of current and former CDC employees, held Sunday.

Kennedy posted a statement regarding the incident on Saturday and addressed CDC employees in an internal email the same day, obtained by POLITICO.

“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.”