(NEW YORK) —Tropical Storm Erin is forecast to strengthen into the first hurricane of the Atlantic season by Saturday morning and then become a major Category 3 hurricane by Sunday morning as it passes north of Puerto Rico.
But as of now, Erin is not expected to pose a direct threat to the U.S.
Puerto Rico can expect 1 or 2 inches of rain from Erin’s outer bands, as well as dangerously rough surf and a high risk of rip currents this weekend and into early next week.
After moving north of Puerto Rico, Erin is forecast to turn north.
The vast majority of meteorological modeling has Erin remaining over the ocean between Bermuda and the East Coast, passing by Bermuda around Wednesday.
While a landfall in the U.S. isn’t expected, there is a chance Erin could bring a few light rain showers to parts of the East Coast. And for those heading to the beach on the East Coast, Erin will bring a high risk of rip currents from Aug. 21 to Aug. 27.
Because Erin is still many days away, meteorologists in Bermuda and the U.S. East Coast will be watching the storm closely, as any deviation east or west could lead to significant impacts.
(WASHINGTON) — A New York man was charged with allegedly cyberstalking a family member of the slain former UnitedHealthcare CEO, according to a complaint filed by the Justice Department on Wednesday.
Shane Daley, 40, of Galway, New York, allegedly left four voicemails over the course of multiple days for an unnamed member of Brian Thompson’s family.
Luigi Mangione was charged in the brazen shooting of Thompson in December 2024 that unfolded in the middle of New York City and captured the nation’s attention. Prosecutors say Mangione allegedly targeted Thompson for his role at the healthcare company.
The voicemails allegedly left by Daley, according to the DOJ, are “threatening” and left the member of Thompson’s family scared for her life.
“Your [family member] got lit the f— up cause he’s a f—— asshole,” Daley allegedly said in a voicemail left on Dec. 4, 2024, the same day of Thompson’s killing, according to the complaint.
“Profiting off the f——, off the backs of poor Americans. This s— is gonna keep happening to you f—— pricks. F— you.”
In another voicemail, Daley allegedly shared a hostile message that Thompson’s family member should tell his children.
“Their dad died cause he was a f—— capitalist. $10.2 million a year, f—— insider trading b—-. Making a f—— off of the backs of poor Americans. You all deserve to f—— die and burn and hell. F— you. F— your f—— kids.”
“Brian Thompson was gunned down in midtown Manhattan,” Acting U.S. Attorney John A. Sarcone III released a statement along with the DOJ complaint, saying, Daley, “…Gleefully welcomed this tragedy and did all that he could to increase the Thompson family’s pain and suffering.”
“My office and its partners will now do all that we can to hold him accountable for this vicious and outrageous conduct,” Sarcone said.
Mangione has been indicted on federal charges accusing him of stalking Thompson outside the Hilton in Midtown Manhattan and then shooting him to death on Dec. 4, 2024.
Thompson was heading to an investors’ conference when he was shot and killed. Mangione was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, five days later.
Mangione pleaded not guilty to the four-count federal indictment in April. He is currently being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn, New York, awaiting trial.
(LOUISVILLE, Ky.) — A young woman was struck and killed by gunfire while walking a child to a bus stop in Louisville, Kentucky, on Wednesday morning, and authorities are now searching for the shooter.
The child who was with the woman wasn’t physically hurt, Louisville Metro Police Chief Paul Humphrey told reporters.
A 15-year-old boy was taken into custody earlier in the day in connection with the shooting, but authorities determined he was not a suspect and he’s been released, police said.
Authorities then released images of a person of interest and said they’re asking for the public’s help to identify him.
“We do have a description of a young black male dressed in a red hoodie and black sweatpants,” Humphrey said.
The shooting was in front of “very small children,” Humphrey said.
The children who witnessed the gunfire “are forever impacted by this,” Humphrey said, noting that counselors are being provided.
This marks the second shooting at a Louisville bus stop within one week. On Aug. 7 — Jefferson County’s first day of school — multiple shots were fired at a bus stop, police said. No one was hurt and a suspect was arrested, police said.
Officers had been positioned at the site of Wednesday’s shooting each morning since Aug. 7, Humphrey said, but “today happened to be the first morning that we did not have officers at this bus stop.”
“Kids should be able to go to school, go to the bus stop in the morning without any fear of gun violence, of having to run for their life in the morning,” Humphrey said. “It’s absolutely unacceptable that these types of incidents have happened now twice in the last week.”
ABC News’ Michael Pappano contributed to this report.
(JUNEAU, Alaska) — One of Alaska’s most populated cities is bracing for potentially catastrophic flooding as a basin dammed within the Mendenhall Glacier has started to release rainwater and snowmelt downstream, according to officials.
Suicide Basin, a side basin within the Mendenhall Glacier that sits above the city of Juneau, regularly releases glacier lake outburst floods, according to the National Weather Service. But recent measurements of water within the basement suggest the basin could release enough water to overwhelm the Mendenhall River and Mendenhall Lake, according to officials.
By 7 a.m. local time, the Mendenhall River had reached a major flood stage at 16.51 feet and was continuing to rise — surpassing the record flood stage set in 2024 of 15.99 feet, according to the NWS. Flood warnings have been issued for the lake and river due to the release.
Residents along the flood zones have been urged to evacuate the area, with the peak flooding expected Wednesday around 8 a.m. local time.
“Don’t Wait. Evacuate TONIGHT,” the City of Juneau wrote in a Facebook post Tuesday night.
City officials were warning residents early Wednesday to avoid driving on roads within the flood zone already inundated by water.
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski posted to X on Wednesday, warning of how dire the situation could become.
“This is likely to become a life-threatening situation,” Murkowski said. “If you are told to evacuate, stop what you are doing and immediately go to an emergency shelter or another safe location.”
Floodwaters are expected to fall below the flood stage through Thursday, according to the NWS.
Mendenhall is a popular tourist attraction in Alaska, but the retreating glacier — which acts as a dam for Suicide Basin — has caused flooding in the region every summer in recent years after it refills with water from rain and melting snow in the spring.
In 2023, a glacier lake outburst at Mendenhall’s Suicide Basin destroyed several structures along the Mendenhall River as the water rushed downstream. The record flooding prompted city officials in Juneau to issue an emergency declaration.
The outburst, which caused a decade’s worth of erosion in one weekend, would not have happened without climate change, NOAA said in 2023. Alaska has warmed twice as fast as any U.S. state over the last several decades, according to NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. Suicide Basin has been releasing glacier lake outburst floods since 2011, so the National Weather Service in Juneau’s monitoring program has a camera pointed directly at the basin to see how much water levels are rising and falling.
Glaciers in Alaska have been experiencing a steep decline since the late 1980s, according to the state’s Department of Geological and Geophysical Surveys.
Globally, glaciers are at risk of significant ice loss due to climate change, scientists say.
Glaciers around the world lost an estimated 7,211 billion tons of ice between 2000 and 2023, equating to an average annual loss of 301 billion tons, according to a Nature study published in February. The rate of ice loss has increased by about 36% in the past two decades, the researchers found.
Even if warming were to stabilize at current levels, the world’s glaciers would still likely lose at least 39% of mass, according to the World Economic Forum.
(WASHINGTON) — A federal appeals court has reversed a lower court’s ruling, clearing the way for the Trump administration to cut billions in foreign aid funding this year.
In a 2-1 decision Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit overruled a lower court’s decision that prohibited the Trump administration from making drastic cuts to USAID funding that had already approved by Congress.
The court sidestepped the substantive question of whether the cuts were constitutional, instead deciding that the nonprofits that sued the Trump administration lacked the standing to bring a case.
Judges Karen Henderson and Gregory Katsas — appointed by Presidents George H. W. Bush and Donald Trump, respectively — determined that only the head of the Government Accountability Office has the authority to sue under the Impoundment Control Act.
“The district court erred in granting that relief because the grantees lack a cause of action to press their claims,” the majority wrote.
The lawsuit over USAID funding had been one of the first major legal successes for nonprofits challenging the Trump administration, which ordered the suspension of grants that didn’t comply with the president’s priorities.
After U.S. District Judge Amir Ali issued a temporary restraining order in February blocking Trump’s executive order from taking effect, both the D.C. circuit court and the United States Supreme Court sided with the nonprofits, denying a request from the Trump administration to block an order enforcing the TRO.
In a dissenting opinion issued with Wednesday’s ruling, Judge Florence Pan, a Biden appointee, criticized her colleagues for ignoring the concern that the funding cuts were unconstitutional and thus harmed “the rule of law and the very structure of our government.”
“At bottom, the court’s acquiescence in and facilitation of the Executive’s unlawful behavior derails the ‘carefully crafted system of checked and balanced power’ that serves as the ‘greatest security against tyranny — the accumulation of excessive authority in a single Branch,” she wrote.
In this photo released by the National Parks Service, Blake Kieckhafer is shown. Courtesy National Parks Service
(ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK, Colo.) — Rocky Mountain Park Rangers are searching for a 23-year-old Nebraska man who went missing in the Colorado park after he was dropped off there by a ride share service last week, the National Park Service (NPS) said.
Blake Kieckhafer was reported missing to park rangers on Monday, according to NPS.
He was last seen in the Upper Beaver Meadows area of the park last Thursday at around 5:20 p.m. when he was dropped off, the park service said.
Upper Beaver Meadows Road is about a mile west of Beaver Meadows Entrance, on the east side of the park near U.S. Highway 36, according to NPS.
He was wearing a dark T-shirt, dark pants and a dark baseball cap with no logo, officials said. He was also carrying a small maroon daypack, they noted.
Kieckhafer is 5 foot 11 inches, weighs about 180 pounds, has buzzed, short blonde hair, a mustache and blue-green eyes, NPS said.
“If you have information that could help investigators or if you have seen Blake Kieckhafer, please contact us. You don’t have to tell us who you are, but please tell us what you know,” NPS said in a statement Wednesday.
The service noted that anyone with information can call or text the National Park Service Investigative Services Bureau Tip Line at 888-653-0009, fill in their online form or email them.
Flood waters left debris including vehicles and equipment scattered in Louise Hays Park on July 5, 2025, in Kerrville, Texas. Eric Vryn/Getty Images
(KERRVILLE, Texas) — As the Guadalupe River overflowed in Kerr County on the Fourth of July, officials with a local agency charged with “managing water quality and water quantity” in the Texas Hill Country appeared perplexed by the extent of the unfolding crisis and their role in addressing it, according to emails and text messages obtained by ABC News.
“Wow!! It’s a beautiful thing!” an official initially wrote to an Upper Guadalupe River Authority (UGRA) group chat at 7:09 a.m. — including a screenshot of a graph showing a massive increase in streamflow levels along the river in Kerrville — following drought conditions that Kerr County had faced prior to the flooding.
As others in the group chat shared the increasingly concerning reports they were hearing, it quickly became clear that there was cause for alarm.
“So I know I said it’s a beautiful thing earlier,” the official wrote at 7:38 a.m. “I had just woken up and hadn’t looked at the gages yet. It’s terrible.”
By that time, parts of Kerr County had already been inundated with floodwaters for several hours, flood alerts had been issued, and the Kerrville Police Department had received calls for multiple water rescues.
“When it all settles back down, it will be a totally different river,” an individual identified as maintenance technician Kevin Molenaar wrote.
‘Any word on Camp Mystic?’
The staggering toll of the flooding would not become apparent for days. More than 130 deaths were ultimately reported across the region, with many of the fatalities occurring at Camp Mystic.
On July 4, one official texted Dick Eastland, the camp’s president, “You are in my prayers.”
There was no response.
Eastland, who also served as the treasurer for the UGRA’s Board of Directors, died during the storm alongside multiple young campers and counselors.
“The poor children at the camps and their parents,” an official wrote in a group chat. “And so many people here in RVs for the 4th.”
The communications were released in response to a request filed by ABC News under Texas law.
They paint a picture of confusion and concern throughout Independence Day, with some text messages stating that water gages in Hunt and Kerrville had stopped reading. In other messages, UGRA representatives posted what they had learned from news outlets or on social media.
“There are missing people and possibly missing kids from mystic but that is not confirmed,” an official posted at 9:47 a.m.
Less than two hours later, the official typed, “They are saying now all camp mystic accounted for. Praise the lord.”
An individual identified as natural resources manager Shelby Taber responded, “Glad to hear camp mystic is all safe!”
But by mid-afternoon, the UGRA’s senior leadership appeared to realize the situation at Camp Mystic was more dire — though they did not know specific details.
“Any word on Camp Mystic?” UGRA board president William Rector emailed general manager Tara Bushnoe at 2:41 p.m. “I bet we may find some financial assistance for establishing our Floor Warning System!”
Bushnoe responded at 3:12 p.m. that she only knew what she had seen on a local news website indicating “there are some girls missing” and that the camp had issued a statement that aired on a local newscast.
“I don’t know if a flood warning system would have made enough difference,” Bushnoe wrote. “I think it would have made some, but this happened so quickly. We will have to be careful with our messaging to be respectful of the devastation.”
“Very true.” Rector wrote back. “I think working behind the scenes is going to be the most appropriate action at this time. We, however, need to be concerned that the county does not try to sieze [sic] control.”
Contacted by ABC News regarding the messages, officials with the UGRA did not respond to a request for comment.
‘Vulnerable to flash floods’
ABC News previously asked the UGRA for any flood after-action reports it may have created over the last 25 years following other storms along the Guadalupe River, but a law firm representing the authority said that they “have no responsive information.”
Documents released over the last month show that concerns over the risks posed by the Guadalupe River in Kerr County were widely known ahead of the Fourth of July floods, with the UGRA being particularly cognizant.
As ABC News previously reported, the authority submitted an application last year to state officials seeking a $1 million grant from the Texas Flood Infrastructure Fund for a project called the “Kerr County Flood Warning System” that would have included “high water detection systems at 10 low water crossings.”
“Since 1932, approximately 35 lives have been lost in floods in Kerr County. Many of those lost were in vehicles attempting to cross flooded roads,” the application noted alongside a timeline of deaths between 1987 and 2016.
However, in October 2024 the UGRA declined to continue applying for funding from the Infrastructure Fund, with Bushnoe writing in a letter at the time that although Kerr County was “vulnerable to flash foods,” the project would have been “only eligible for a 5% grant.”
“We will continue to explore options to implement a Kerr County flood warning system and financial assistance opportunities,” Bushnoe’s letter said.
The letter did not note who decided that the project would have only been eligible for a 5% grant.
The UGRA later reached an agreement with a company called Kisters to develop a different flood warning system that would have consisted of a “centralized dashboard to support local flood monitoring and emergency response.”
The agreement, which was signed exactly one month before the July 4 floods, indicated that the project was expected to cost more than $70,000.
A kick-off meeting was scheduled for mid-July, but the plans were put on hold after the floods. It remains unclear what happened to the plan crafted in 2024 for the $1 million flood warning system.
Kisters did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment following the floods.
‘We’ll be getting lots of calls’ July 4 was supposed to be a day of celebration in Kerr County, with a major Independence Day fireworks event called “Fourth on the River” scheduled to take place just a stone’s throw from the Guadalupe River.
Instead, it became one of the most tragic days in Central Texas history, with scores of people unaccounted for after sunset.
At the Upper Guadalupe River Authority, some staff members discussed the significance of the catastrophe among each other.
“I am hopeful they find more survivors tonight, but I assume the worst for the missing,” natural resources specialist Travis Linscomb texted another staffer at 11:48 p.m.
“Hopefully this will push the early flood warning topic to the forefront and we get more done this time around,” Linscomb added. “Unfortunately it seems like it takes major loss of life to get the ball really rolling on it like Blanco 2015 did,” an apparent reference to another flood a decade ago.
As the calendar turned to July 5, the UGRA team grappled with how to explain their role as inquiries came in, according to the communications.
“I have a feeling we’ll be getting lots of calls from very angry people asking why we let this happen because they want someone to blame and I’m going to have no idea what to tell them,” one official wrote at 7:21 a.m.
The lack of an effective flood warning system in Kerr County would become top of mind in the hours, days and weeks after the banks of the Guadalupe overflowed. A committee of Texas legislators is now investigating the circumstances surrounding the July 4th floods.
“Some of the comments I’m seeing are saying things along the lines of ‘how is there now [sic] flood warning system in 2025?'” an employee wrote to Linscomb early in the morning on July 5. “I want so badly to tell them that there is soooooo much more to it than just snapping your fingers and making it happen. Red tape, money, equipment that may not even survive a flood (like we saw today), etc.”
“I can’t imagine just being asleep then waking up to your rv floating away with you and your family in it and there is absolutely nothing you can do,” the employee said. “The fear and helplessness people must have felt is gutwrenching.”
(AUSTIN, Texas) — A 4-year-old girl, her grandfather and a Target employee have been identified as the victims killed in a shooting outside of a Target store in Austin, Texas, according to police.
The suspect, 32-year-old Ethan Nieneker, allegedly first shot Hector Leopoldo Martinez Machuca, a Target employee, as he was collecting carts in the parking lot on Monday afternoon, Austin Police Sgt. Nathan Sexton said at a news conference on Tuesday.
Nieneker then allegedly approached a family’s car, fatally shot the little girl and her grandfather, Adam Chow, and minorly wounded Adam Chow’s wife and stole their car, Sexton said.
Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis called it an “unprovoked and deliberate attack” on “innocent lives,” adding that it was “in broad daylight.”
Asked if the suspect gave a motive, Sexton said, “He said that he was Jesus and there was really no reason whatsoever given. It was a completely random choosing of the victims.”
After the shooting, Nieneker allegedly fled the scene in the stolen car and carried out other crimes, including “causing multiple crashes,” “assaulting another female driver and stealing her Volkswagen,” trying to break into a Waymo vehicle and vandalizing the home of an acquaintance from bible study, Sexton said.
Officers found Nieneker naked; they subdued him with a Taser and took him into custody, police said.
Nieneker, who worked at a restaurant and lived alone, has a history with the Austin Police Department, including assault, driving while intoxicated and mental health reports, Davis said.
Davis did not elaborate on the mental health issues but said, “This man had some serious issues,” adding, “There were some serious failures here.”
Nieneker faces charges including two counts of capital murder and one count of first-degree felony murder, Sexton said.
The suspect’s gun “was acquired through family,” Sexton said.
A Target spokesperson said in a statement on Monday, “We are devastated by the violence that occurred today.”
“Our hearts are with the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives, our team in Austin and all those impacted by this tragedy,” the statement said. “We are working with law enforcement as they conduct their investigation and are grateful to the first responders who acted quickly at the scene. In the days ahead, we will continue partnering with law enforcement and will be providing support resources, including grief counseling, to our team.”
Austin-Travis County EMS had initially reported four victims, but that number was later corrected.
(UVALDE, Texas) — Two months before a gunman killed 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, the school district’s then-police chief was required to attend a training about how to respond to an active shooter, which instructed in no uncertain terms that an “officer’s first priority is to move in and confront the attacker.”
When Pete Arredondo, the police chief of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District at the time of the May 2022 shooting, was confronted with precisely the situation his training should have prepared him for, he did the opposite of what the training instructed would have saved lives, according to a newly released trove of documents from the Uvalde school district.
“Time is the number one enemy during active shooter response,” a lesson plan for the training said. “The best hope that innocent victims have is that officers immediately move into action to isolate, distract, or neutralize the threat, even if that means one officer acting alone.”
More than three years after the shooting and the training designed to prevent it, Arredondo continues to fight a criminal case that alleges that he was responsible for putting students in danger by waiting 77 minutes to confront the gunman, who had holed up in adjoining fourth-grade classrooms.
Arredondo has pleaded not guilty to 10 counts of child endangerment and abandonment on behalf of the injured and surviving children. His trial date is set for October 2025.
“From the benefit of hindsight where I’m sitting now, of course, it wasn’t the right decision. It was the wrong decision, period,” then-Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw told reporters days after the shooting.
The records of the active shooter training were included in a trove of documents released by the Uvalde School District on Monday, following a years-long effort to withhold the documents about the school district’s response, security, and police training. After years of requests from the families of victims, the public, and media organizations, including ABC News, the records were released on the eve of the new school year, as prosecutors prepare to bring two former school district police leaders, including Arredondo, to trial.
Paul Looney, an attorney for Arredondo, said in a statement to ABC News, “There is very little that will shed any constructive light on what to do next time or who did or didn’t do anything this last time. Much is being made of trying to keep information private and secret so that they can try to prosecute two officers. Those prosecutions are flawed. They are not going to be successful, but the hiding of information is hiding a gold mine that we need to be learning from so that we can handle it more constructively next time. I’ve seen all this stuff in discovery for quite a while now. The hiding of this is pointless and serves nobody any constructive purpose.”
“I’m not sure if my battle for transparency will ever truly be over,” said Gloria Cazares, the mother of 9-year-old Jackie Cazares, who was killed in the massacre. “I need to know everything that led up to my daughter’s death and what happened after. Every detail matters. If we can’t get justice, then the very least we deserve is every piece of evidence, every record, every truth that has been kept from us.”
Among the hundreds of pages released, the records suggest that the flawed response was not because of a lack of training, but in spite of it. The Texas state legislature passed a law in 2019 that required school resource officers and police to participate in an approved active shooting training within 180 days of their employment. One such training in Uvalde took place on March 21, 2022, two months before the deadly shooting.
“First responders to the active shooter scene will usually be required to place themselves in harm’s way and display uncommon acts of courage to save the innocent,” the training said. “A first responder unwilling to place the lives of the innocent above their own safety should consider another career field.”
The training also includes material about the flaws in the emergency response to the February 2018 deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida, where officers faced criticism for staging outside the building while the shooting took place. According to the materials, the training in Texas was mandated to prevent a similar tragedy from taking place, where a delayed law enforcement response could potentially contribute to additional casualties.
The newly released documents also shed light on the academic and disciplinary history of the deceased gunman, Salvador Ramos. The 18-year-old student was disciplined for inappropriate behavior at least 18 times between 2015 and 2018, including bullying other classmates, using inappropriate and sexual language, and fighting his peers, the documents say.
Ramos’ incidents show a clear and documented pattern of low-grade but increasing and recurrent behavioral issues in school, according to the documents. His acting out was written up multiple times, but there was no clear follow-up documented to address his needs and help him. His parents were often absent from the process, the documents show.
His mother Adriana Reyes told law enforcement prior to the shooting that she was “scared” of her son. Speaking to ABC News after the shooting, Reyes said her son could be “aggressive” but he was not a “monster.”
“We all have a rage, that some people have it more than others,” Reyes said
In November of 2015, a disciplinary write-up noted Ramos wrote “I’m gay” on the back of another student’s artwork planning sheet, according to the documents. Though he denied it, the student whose paper it was identified Ramos as the culprit. When the teacher called Ramos’ mom, “it said this person is unavailable. I also tried calling grandfather’s phone, and it said voicemail is full,” the documents show.
In March 2018, Ramos was written up for truancy and got suspended, according to the documents. Also that March, he was written up for “‘using sexual language’ after repeatedly [being] told to stop.” When told to do his work by a teacher, the documents say he flashed the “L” loser sign and was placed under in-school suspension.
Ramos was written up for drawing an “inappropriate picture” on an assignment in May 2018 and received in-school suspension, according to the records. The same month, a handwritten note in pink pen said he was sent to the office because “he refused to do his work. I told him to put his head down for the whole class or go to the office. He decided to go to the office.”
Also in May 2018, Ramos “went up to a student and hit him in the arm. Another student reacted by kicking him,” according to the documents. Under parent contact, the documents show the disciplinary record said, “no answer.”
Bullet holes are seen in windows at the Centers For Disease Control (CDC) Global Headquarters following a shooting that left two dead, on August 9, 2025 in Atlanta, Georgia. Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images
(ATLANTA) — The gunman who attacked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s campus on Friday may have fired several hundred rounds, law enforcement said on Tuesday.
During a news conference, Chris Hosey, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), said almost 500 shell casings were recovered. Of those rounds, about 200 struck facilities on the CDC campus.
It’s unclear how many came from the gunman and how many came from law enforcement exchanging gunfire.
Hosey said that the suspect, 30-year-old Patrick Joseph White, had a long gun that belonged to his father during the attack.
Hosey added that White’s parents are “fully cooperating” with the investigation, which is ongoing.
White had no criminal history, Hosey said. White had “recently verbalized thoughts of suicide” and law enforcement had been contacted several weeks prior to the shooting, according to Hosey.
Hosey also confirmed that a search warrant of White’s home had found “written documentation” expressing his discontent with the COVID-19 vaccine. GBI is examining the documentation, which is being shared with the FBI Atlanta field office.
There were no direct threats made in the written document but allegedly White wanted to make the public aware of his discontent with and distrust of the vaccine, Hosey said.
Law enforcement sources and sources close to the suspect previously told ABC News that White had blamed the COVID-19 vaccine for making him sick and depressed.
People who knew the 30-year-old suspected shooter told ABC News they had heard White express similar angry and conspiracy-minded sentiments.
One neighbor, who asked not to be named, told ABC News that White had sat on her porch and complained that he lost weight, developed problems swallowing and experienced gastrointestinal issues after he got the COVID-19 vaccine.
Serious health events after receiving the COVID-19 vaccines are rare, according to the CDC.
White died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. A total of five firearms were recovered from the scene, according to Hosey.
Electronic devices seized during the investigation are currently undergoing digital forensic examination and GBI agents are continuing to conduct numerous interviews.
DeKalb County Police Officer David Rose was fatally shot after responding to the reported gunfire. Hosey said preliminary information from the from the DeKalb County Medical Examiner’s Office indicates Rose’s injuries were caused by one of the gunman’s weapons.
“He served with honor, courage and unwavering dedication,” Hosey said during the news conference. “His sacrifice will never be forgotten and his commitment to protecting others is a profound testament to the very best of the law enforcement profession.”
In an agency-wide meeting on Tuesday, new CDC director Susan Monarez said that she knows the campus will feel “unsettling, in many ways, for some time to come.”
“We will make sure that you have the resources, the protection, the support you need to keep doing the work that you do. Protecting health and saving lives. Please take care of yourself. Check-in on your colleagues,” Monarez said in an audio recording of the meeting obtained by ABC News. “And know this, we will face the challenge together. United in purpose, grounded in truth, and committed to protecting one another.”
CDC employees told ABC News that the meeting was cut short by technical difficulties, lasting just about 10 minutes instead of the planned hour.
Editor’s note: The story has been updated to clarify that some of the 500 rounds may not have been fired by the gunman, according to law enforcement.
