A Louisville bank employee armed with a rifle opened fire at his workplace on Monday morning, killing five people – including a close friend of Kentucky’s governor – while livestreaming the attack on Instagram, authorities said.
Police arrived as shots were still being fired inside Old National Bank and killed the shooter in an exchange of gunfire, the Louisville metro police department (LMPD) chief, Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel, said. The city’s mayor, Craig Greenberg, called the attack “an evil act of targeted violence”.
Police identified the dead as Joshua Barrick, 40; Thomas Elliot, 63; Juliana Farmer, 45; and James Tutt, 64.
Nine people, including two police officers, were treated for injuries from the Louisville shooting, University of Louisville hospital spokeswoman Heather Fountaine said in an email. One of the wounded, identified as 57-year-old Deanna Eckert, later died, police said on Monday night.
Andy Beshear, the governor of Kentucky, on the verge of tears, said during an earlier news briefing that he knew some of the victims, including Elliot, a senior vice-president at the bank.
“I have a very close friend who didn’t make it today,” he said. “And I have another close friend who didn’t, either. And one who’s at the hospital that I hope is going to make it through.”
Paul Humphrey, the deputy chief of the LMPD, told reporters that his officers were on the scene within three minutes of the first 911 call from the targeted bank and immediately confronted the shooter.
“They absolutely saved people’s lives,” Humphrey said of the officers. “It was the heroic response of the officers that made sure that no more people were more seriously injured.”
The department identified the shooter as Connor Sturgeon, 23, who joined the downtown branch of the Old National Bank as a full-time employee last year.
One of the wounded officers, 26-year-old Nickolas Wilt, graduated from the police academy on 31 March. He was in critical condition after being shot in the head and undergoing surgery, the police chief said. At least three patients had been discharged.
Monday’s violent incident was at least the US’s 146th mass shooting this year. The Gun Violence Archive resource website defines a mass shooting as one in which four or more victims are killed or wounded.
The investigation into the shooting at the Old National Bank, close to the city’s Slugger Field baseball stadium, would be lengthy, Humphrey said. Witnesses reported that employees took shelter inside a bank vault and officers had to force their way into the locked building.
At least five gunshot sounds were audible in a tweet posted by an eyewitness.
Footage from a news helicopter showed a large law enforcement presence around the bank and shattered glass from the building’s frontage spread across a sidewalk.
The White House said Joe Biden was being kept abreast of developments.
The Republican Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, who represents Kentucky, tweeted condolences from him and his wife, Elaine Chao, the former US labor secretary.
“Elaine and I are devastated by the news coming out of Louisville this morning,” McConnell wrote. “Thank you to LMPD and our first responders for your bravery at the scene. We send our prayers to the victims, their families, and the city of Louisville as we await more information.”
The shooting took place at about 8.30am local time and the bank was not scheduled to open until 9am.
Calls for more substantial gun control in the US, including from the president, have increased amid a slew of recent mass shootings. Biden has consistently urged federal lawmakers to pass an assault weapons ban, but Congress has been unable to do so.
The Louisville mayor, Craig Greenberg, lamented what the Gun Violence Archive recorded as the 15th mass shooting in the US this month, and the deadliest since six people, including three nine-year-old students, were murdered at a church school in Nashville on 27 March.
“I ask that everyone around our city, around the country, around the world, pray with us for those who are currently at UofL, fighting for their lives as a result of another act of gun violence,” he told the press conference.
According to the Facebook page of the shooter’s mother, Sturgeon grew up in southern Indiana, which is just north of Louisville. He enrolled as a business student at the University of Alabama in 2016.
He had no prior contact with Louisville police, the police chief said.
In a separate incident, a man was killed and a woman injured in a shooting outside a community college in Louisville hours after the bank attack, local CBS TV affiliate WLKY News reported, citing police.
Police said there were multiple suspects in the shooting at Jefferson Community and Technical College, about two miles from the bank, who fled the scene and remained at large.
The Louisville metro police department, meanwhile, is still reeling from a scathing justice department report last month which was produced in the aftermath of the 2020 killing of Breonna Taylor by officers.
The report condemned the police department for “discriminating against Black people” and violating residents’ civil rights.
