The gunman who targeted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters earlier this month, shooting hundreds of bullets at the building and killing a police officer, likely attempted to enter the agency’s campus days before the shooting, officials said Thursday.
In an email to employees that was reviewed by NOTUS, the CDC’s top safety official, Jeff Williams, called the news a “distressing development” but said the fact that the shooter was not able to access the building was “a testament to the strength of our protocols.”
Security footage showed what appears to be Patrick Joseph White attempting to enter a CDC visitor center on Aug. 6, two days before the shooting took place, Williams said in the email. Williams wrote that the video evidence “does not 100% confirm the person’s identity” but that CDC’s office of safety and Georgia’s Bureau of Investigation believe the “likelihood is very high” that the person in the video was the gunman. He was turned away by the guards without incident, Williams writes.