A horrific shooting took place outside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s headquarters in Atlanta on Friday. The shooting killed one police officer and left the building’s staff locked down and terrified. The shooter, who unsuccessfully tried to breach the building, has been identified as 30-year-old Patrick Joseph White. He was found dead at the scene.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s head of the Department of Health and Human Services, has not been particularly good at navigating his high-profile position since taking office. His controversial beliefs and his unusual policies have made the bureaucrat a consistent target for criticism, and the events of this weekend proved to be yet another opportunity for Kennedy-related controversy to erupt.
Kennedy posted a public statement about the shooting over the weekend. Before he did that, however, Kennedy notably posted some pictures from a fishing trip to his personal X account. “Fishing the Kenae with Ninilchik Chief Ivan Encelewski Chairman of the Cook Inlet Tribal Council and Council President Gloria Oneil,” Kennedy posted on Saturday morning. Some 30 minutes later, Kennedy posted a statement to his official account expressing sympathy for the traumatized CDC staff: “We are deeply saddened by the tragic shooting at CDC’s Atlanta campus that took the life of officer David Rose,” Kennedy wrote. “We stand with his wife and three children and the entire CDC family.”
Fishing the Kenae with Ninilchik Chief Ivan Encelewski Chairman of the Cook Inlet Tribal Council and Council President Gloria Oneil
The 1948 photo
is Ivans grandpa Chief Larry Oskolkoff Sr. with a skiff load of King salmon from a Cook Inlet fish trap. The Kenae Kings are also in… pic.twitter.com/aVtkZTkI36— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) August 9, 2025
It’s worth noting that public figures aren’t always personally responsible for the posts on their social media accounts. It’s unclear who is running Kennedy’s socials but, whoever they are, they dropped the ball here. Gizmodo reached out to the HHS for comment. An HHS press release published Monday afternoon said that Kennedy had visited the CDC campus where the attack took place and later “met privately with the widow of Officer David Rose, who courageously gave his life in the line of duty.” The statement says that Kennedy “offered his deepest condolences and reaffirmed the agency’s commitment to honoring Officer Rose’s bravery, sacrifice, and service to the nation.” Kennedy also reached out to staff on Saturday, not long after the shooting took place.
Kennedy’s questionable social media choices aren’t the only thing he has been criticized for in the wake of the shooting, however. White is alleged to have been preoccupied with the covid-19 vaccine which, according to MSNBC, he “blamed for his health problems,” an assertion that was previously corroborated by CNN’s sources. Kennedy has notably spread skepticism about vaccines and fanned the flames of conspiracy theory around the covid pandemic. Several medical organizations recently sued Kennedy over changes he made to the government’s vaccination recommendations. When it comes to the recent shooting, NPR has reported that some laid-off CDC employees have even said that “Kennedy shares responsibility for the violence and should resign.”
Kennedy’s leadership at the HHS has been subject to ongoing criticism. The MAHA zealot has pursued various fringe agendas (like removing synthetic dyes from cereal and other processed foods and reintroducing tallow into french fries) while moving to cut funding, staffing, and resources to arguably much more important initiatives—including mRNA vaccine development, cancer research, and other vital health programs. Earlier this year, the HHS conducted layoffs at the CDC that reportedly impacted thousands of workers, although some of those workers have since been invited back to the agency.
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