A Lie Stole Officer David Rose – And Left a Nation Silent
A lie murdered David Rose.
On Friday, nearly 500 police officers packed into an Atlanta megachurch to honor the fallen DeKalb County officer, slain in the line of duty. They came not just to pay respects, but to preserve a memory that could not be twisted by misinformation or buried in silence.
As the service unfolded, an honor guard in crisp uniforms lifted their white-gloved hands in salute. Lt. Jason Sawyer handed a folded American flag to Rose’s toddler daughter, sitting beside her grandmother in the front pew. Her tiny shirt read, “My Daddy Is a Hero.” Rose’s wife could not be there—she is pregnant with the couple’s third child. That’s when the wall of stoic faces finally broke, and the church filled with weeping.
Two weeks earlier, Rose had responded to a violent attack: a gunman, radicalized by anti-vaccine disinformation, opened fire with rifles on the CDC near Emory University. Rose rushed to the scene—and was shot dead before the attacker turned the gun on himself.
Most of the country quickly moved on. But inside Atlanta’s First Baptist Church, grief still burned.
A Funeral Full of Silence
The pews were filled with officers from Brotherhood of the Fallen, who traveled from as far as New York City and Aurora, Colorado, along with CDC employees—many of them ex-staffers, fired under Trump’s administration.
Governor Brian Kemp and other politicians sat in one section, their presence heavy with expectation. Yet unlike the fury that erupted in 2024 when UGA nursing student Laken Riley was murdered by an undocumented immigrant—a case that triggered sweeping anti-immigration laws—Rose’s killing did not inspire the same outrage.
This time, silence ruled.
Even Donald Trump—so quick to politicize tragedy when it fit his narrative—has said nothing to Rose’s family. No statement. No condolences. His grandmother confirmed the silence.
And while Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime spreader of vaccine conspiracies, toured the CDC offices after the shooting, he didn’t meet with frontline staff. Internal memos made no mention of the anti-vaccine motivation behind the attack.
At the church café, whispers floated: maybe JD Vance would show, maybe even Melania Trump. Neither came.
Instead, CDC employees remembered chilling words from Russell Vought, former budget director: “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected … we want them in trauma.”
“Well,” one CDC researcher said quietly, “we are traumatized now.”
Terror Inside the CDC
One young CDC worker recalled the horror:
“I thought it was fireworks—then realized it was bullets. I went to the window and suddenly more rounds shattered the glass. My colleague screamed duck! and I crawled across the floor.”
The gunman had fired over 500 rounds. Employees hid in interior offices, convinced multiple shooters were inside. For days, they stepped over shards of glass, haunted by the chaos.
Most refuse to speak publicly, terrified of losing their jobs. One admitted the government’s silence broke their last thread of loyalty. “We’re loyal to each other now—not to the agency.”
Political Cowardice
Elected officials at the memorial echoed the staff’s despair. One city councilmember compared it bitterly: “A Minnesota state rep gets murdered by a far-right radical and it’s forgotten in a week. But when Edward ‘Big Balls’ Coristine gets roughed up on a DC street, Trump calls in the National Guard.”
The message was clear—politics chooses its martyrs.
Honoring Rose
Amid the politics, grief carried the day. Interim Police Chief David Padrick reminded mourners:
“David Rose’s life was defined by service—first as a Marine, then as a police officer. He wasn’t just a coworker. He was family.”
Police Chaplain Gregory Webb added:
“He had six months of training, but the heart of a warrior. While others ran from danger, he ran into the fire. Healing from this will take time—we all grieve.”
The service closed with a 21-gun salute. As silence fell, mourners lined up to sign a life-sized cutout of Rose, laying flowers at its base.
His cousin asked the unspoken question: how could a man with clear mental health struggles and growing agitation so easily obtain high-powered rifles?
For now, silence remains the only answer.