‘I’m gonna shoot up the CDC’ | Patrick Joseph White’s father details his family’s horrors

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - Ken White and his wife were watching television, having just gotten a call from their son, Patrick, around 5 p.m.

“I asked him how he was doing,” Ken White recalled, “He said, ‘I’m gonna shoot up the CDC,’ and then he hung up.”

The couple changed their television channel to a local newscast, where Ken White saw the unmistakable image of his car at the scene of the Aug. 8, 2025, deadly shooting near the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control that would claim the life of a DeKalb County police officer.

The family’s horror would only increase as the hours unfolded. Law enforcement determined Patrick Joseph White, 30, was the shooter in an incident that claimed the life of David Rose. Patrick White himself took his own life in the aftermath.

In an exclusive interview with Atlanta News First Investigates, Ken White said on the afternoon of Aug. 8, his son asked to borrow his car to meet a friend. After the alarming phone conversation, Ken White said he “immediately tried to call him back, and he had turned the phone off.”

Listen to the full interview with Ken White below or on Atlanta News First’s podcasting platforms.

Minutes later, the 69-year-old saw breaking news of an active shooter at the CDC and called 911. He also recognized his 2006 white Toyota Scion on television, confirming for him his son was the gunman.

“There’s nobody else it could be,” Ken White said. “I don’t know how he got hold of the firearms.”

Four days later, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation confirmed the guns used in the shooting were registered to Ken White and stolen from his safe. GBI Director Chris Hosey said investigators determined the weapons had been secured and Patrick forced his way into the safe.

Ken White, a retired federal investigator, said the weapons included rifles, a shotgun and a pistol. He said he believed they were locked safely.

“We thought they were safe,” he said. “I locked them up. I kept the key on my person 24-7 and I slept with it.”

Dispatch records show at least 11 calls to 911 from the family’s home in the past year. One came after Patrick took a gun from the safe in the summer of 2024, prompting concerns he might hurt himself. He was admitted into a mental health hospital but returned home a week later.

When asked why he didn’t get rid of the guns, Ken White struggled to find the right words.

“As I said, I did a lot of shooting; enjoyed it very much,” he said. “I don’t know the answer to that.”

Authorities say Patrick broke into the safe again last month, using the weapons to target the CDC. ”As much as we’re grieving for our son, [we’re grieving] for Officer Rose a whole lot more,” Ken White said.

The family said Patrick showed signs of mental illness over the past two years, including depression, but do not know if he was ever formally diagnosed. They shared medication bottles prescribed for depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder their son left behind.

Ken White said Patrick was admitted into Smyrna’s Ridgeview Institute last year after taking one of his father’s handguns.

Atlanta attorney Natalie Woodward was asked by the family to help them navigate this difficult time. She has years of experience litigating cases exposing inadequate mental health resources in the medical industry.

According to Woodward and the family, Patrick appeared to receive prescriptions but no therapy.

“It looks like there was no mental health therapy happening,” Woodward said. “From everything we can tell, he was getting medications for mental health issues, but not getting any treatment that involved therapy or anything other than a prescription script over and over again.”

Atlanta News First Investigates reached out to Ridgeview for comment, but it did not respond.

The family believes Patrick’s anger toward the CDC stemmed from misinformation about the Covid-19 vaccine. Though his parents and family were vaccinated, Patrick claimed the vaccine was killing him.

During a news conference, GBI officials said they found documents written by Patrick that expressed his discontent with the vaccine, including one that read: “…the covid shots were always meant to indiscriminately murder as many as possible...”

His father and Woodward said the writings were fueled by falsehoods found online.

“I know my son wanted to make this about ‘the jab,’ and that was his latest cause, but this is more about mental health than anything,” he said.

Woodward added families often face limited options when dealing with adults in crisis.

“If there’s anything else that they could have done, I don’t know what it is,” Woodward said. ”There’s just simply a limited availability of resources for families to take action. What ends up happening [is] they end up calling 911 and then law enforcement officers are having to deal with it because there’s no one else to call.”

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