The Man Who Died a Hero
In a world consumed by vanity, David Rose led a life of service.
I can’t stop thinking about David Rose.
Nearly 200 bullets were fired at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia on August 8. One of those bullets struck down Rose, a 33-year-old former Marine who served his country in the wilds of Afghanistan before returning to serve the people of Atlanta, Georgia. He graduated at the top of his academy class.
Rose was an officer, a husband, and a father of two with another on the way. He was gunned down last week by a disturbed man reeling from the aftershocks of the Covid era. The man who killed Rose: Patrick Joseph White, a 30-year-old man with suicidal tendencies. White was desperate, depressed, and alone. But this story is not about him. It’s about the man he killed.
“Officer Rose was a Marine,” Mark Eister, VP of Operations of Warrior Alliance, told Atlanta First News as he fought back tears. “He offered to go fight for his country and he learned and was taught and trained to run toward the battle and to take it to the enemy.”
That’s exactly what Rose did when shots rang out at the CVS across the street from the CDC building last week. He ran toward the fire, hoping to stop the chaos and violence. But Rose never got there. He was hit exiting his vehicle and died later at Emory University Hospital.
“That’s my son, he would step in front of them again,” said Deveane Atkinson, Rose’s mother. “If you lined him up again and said, ‘this is what’s going to happen,’ he’d say, ‘well, someone is going to have to do it.”
Though Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr made the trip to Atlanta to meet with grieving members of the community, neither President Donald Trump nor the White House has released a statement. A massive memorial has been erected outside the CDC for Rose and support has poured in from across the country. A GoFundMe page to support Rose’s family has raised nearly $500,000 from more than 6,000 donations and all proceeds from this weekend’s running of the Atlanta’s Finest 5K will go to support the grieving family.
“You were my age,” read one of the hundreds of comments left on the fundraising campaign page. “You were a Marine too. You were any of the best of us on the job. You had a family. You had kids. You were a positive influence on society and this country. You will be missed. You will be remembered.”
Rose had only been on the job for a year, graduating at the top of his DeKalb academy class in September of 2024. “We wanted to serve,” Rose said during his graduation speech in March. ‘We wanted to be part of something greater than ourselves. We wanted to wear the badge, not for the sake of a title, but for the responsibility that comes with it. Policing isn’t about enforcing the law, it’s about protecting the vulnerable, standing for justice, and being the person who runs toward danger when others run away.”
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Rose’s cousin Shavon Smith spoke glowingly of her relative before admitting that his life had been taken by “an extremist.” That man, White, had threatened suicide on numerous occasions, and 911 call logs from Cobb County recorded 11 seperate calls from the White family in June of last year, including two for suicide threats. White forced his way into a safe at his parent’s house that contained multiple firearms before carrying out the attack. Law enforcement stated that White blamed the Covid vaccination for his depression. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said White took his own life after a shootout with Emory University Police Officer Mark Morgan.
Rose’s death is a morbid episode in a country still searching for peace and among a people still at war with itself after years of lockdowns and mandates. But what did he do to deserve such an untimely death? Nothing. He was the best of us, and we honor him in these pages.
May we all possess some measure of his courage. Rest in peace, Officer Rose.
