Relatives of the man who unleashed a hail of deadly gunfire on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters at Atlanta are telling investigators the man was suffering from an illness that he blamed on the Covid-19 vaccine.

While authorities have not officially identified a motive for the Friday evening fusillade that left one policeman dead, a law enforcement official told Atlanta-based CNN after speaking with the suspected shooter’s family members that the gunman believed he had been sickened by the Covid-19 vaccine.

The gunman, who died at the scene, opened fire on at least four CDC buildings and then stormed into a building across the street that houses a CVS at Georgia’s Emory University around 4:50 p.m., forcing students to shelter in place on the last day of the summer term, authorities said. 

Authorities on Saturday identified the shooter as 30-year-old Patrick Joseph White of Kennesaw, Georgia, the Associated Press reported.

The chief of the Atlanta Police Department, Darin Schierbaum, said the shooter sprayed multiple rounds at law enforcement and the health agency, which also houses a daycare center caring for 92 children, all of whom were unharmed.

Witnesses said the man was armed with multiple guns – two handguns, a rifle, and a shotgun – and was wearing what appeared to be a surgical mask when he “targeted” the CDC’s buildings, CNN reported. 

Photos shared on social media showed bullet holes piercing the windows of the health agency’s headquarters, located next to the university. The CDC campus remained on lockdown for hours after the shooting, as officials investigated and worked to reunite the daycare’s children with their parents, officials said. 

The law enforcement officer, DeKalb County officer David Rose, leaves behind a pregnant wife and two children. 

“This evening, there is a wife without a husband,” DeKalb County CEO Lorraine Cochran-Johnson said at a press conference. “There are three children, one unborn, without a father. There is a mother and a father, as well as siblings who also share in this traumatic loss. Let’s join together to give this family the support it needs during this traumatic loss.”

The gunman was later found on the second floor of the CVS building with a fatal gunshot wound, Mr. Schierbaum said, adding “we do not know at this time whether that was from officers or if it was self-inflicted.”

 The Atlanta mayor, Andre Dickens, ominously said that the shooter “is a known person that may have some interest in certain things that I can’t reiterate right now.” The suspect’s father, however, had called authorities before the shooting to say he believed his son was suicidal, CNN reported.

While it wasn’t immediately clear how much time had passed between the call and the attack, law enforcement told the outlet the shooter was possibly sick, attributing the supposed ailment to the COVID-19 vaccine, according to police interviews with the suspect’s family.

The health and human services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., announced this week that his agency was canceling $500 million in grants and contracts for research into mRNA vaccines, the innovative technology that was used to fast-track the delivery of Covid-19 vaccines during the pandemic.

President Trump this week hailed the development of the vaccines under his “Operation Warp Speed” initiative as “one of the most incredible things ever done in this country.”