A CVS employee recounted the moments she and her co-workers took cover during Friday’s shooting near the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Emory campus.
Employees crouched in fear while 30-year-old Patrick Joseph White was inside the store on Clifton Road, just across the street from the CDC.
One of the CVS employees shared her experience exclusively with Channel 2’s Brittany Kleinpeter.
“We were laying there for some time — he was just walking around the store, just shooting, shooting… we were just lying there wondering when it was going to stop,” said the worker, who didn’t want to reveal her identity due to the political polarization surrounding the CDC.
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The 20-year-old says she was getting ready to clock out when she heard a loud noise.
“It literally just sounded like a big hammer hitting a wall over and over again,” the worker said.
She says she used her store key to open a closet and helped three other pharmacy employees inside, where they barricaded themselves for what felt like an eternity. She says she heard someone firing a weapon and what sounded like shelves breaking and merchandise being thrown.
She began texting her mom what she thought would be her final goodbye, writing that she loved her parents and wanted them to know she was proud of them, adding, “Please don’t call — we have to be quiet.”
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The woman’s mother also spoke with Kleinpeter, sharing how she was on the way to pick her daughter up from work when she got the texts. “Something like this happening while my daughter is at work is just unimaginable.”
After what seemed like an eternity, the CVS worker says there was a knock on the closet door, followed by officers telling them it was over.
“They didn’t want us to trip on the shell casings — there were so many,” she said.
The woman and her family are sharing their story, recounting moments of bravery and fear, while thanking those who responded.
“I just don’t want the people who lived through this and experienced this to be forgotten,” the woman’s mother added.
No one inside the CVS store was shot, but investigators said White shot DeKalb County Officer David Rose when he responded to the scene. Rose later died at the hospital.
The county shared a link to a GoFundMe organized to support Rose’s wife and children.
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