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Police said a 23-year-old bank employee armed with a rifle killed five colleagues and injured nine others at his workplace in Louisville, Kentucky, on Monday while live streaming the attack on social media.
According to Louisville police, the gunman was fatally shot at the scene. It was unclear whether he was killed by police or committed suicide. The shooting was the latest in a long line of mass shootings in the United States.
Louisville police identified the shooter as Connor Sturgeon, who began working full-time at the Old National Bank’s downtown branch last year.
Police said they responded within minutes to reports of an attacker at the bank office near Slugger Field baseball stadium around 8:30 a.m.
Officers opened fire on the gunman, who was armed with a rifle, according to police Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel. According to her, the attacker posted a live video of his attack on social media.
Joshua Barrick, 40, Deana Eckert, 57, Thomas Elliot, 63, Juliana Farmer, 45, and James Tutt, 64, were all killed.
At an afternoon news conference, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear fought back tears, saying he knew some of the victims, including Elliot, a senior vice president at the bank.
“He taught me how to help build my law career, he assisted me in becoming governor, and he gave me advice on how to be a good father,” Beshear said. “One of the world’s most talked-to people.”
Nine people were injured, including two police officers. According to police, a 26-year-old recent police academy graduate was struck in the head and was in critical condition after brain surgery on Monday.
According to a hospital spokesperson, all nine victims were treated at the University of Louisville Hospital. Two other victims were critically injured.
The shooter’s job status at the bank was not immediately clear on Monday. Gwinn-Villaroel stated at a press conference that he worked there. CNN reported that he had been informed that he would be fired, citing confidential law enforcement sources.
According to his mother’s Facebook page, Sturgeon grew up in southern Indiana, just north of Louisville. He attended Floyd Central High School in Floyds Knobs, Indiana, where he ran track and played basketball for the team coached by his father, Todd. In 2016, he enrolled as a business student at the University of Alabama.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Sturgeon worked as an intern at the bank for three summers from 2018 to 2020 before becoming a full-time employee as a portfolio banker in 2022. According to the police chief, he had no prior contact with Louisville police.
“This was a targeted act of evil violence,” said Craig Greenberg, the mayor of Louisville, a city of 625,000 people, during a press conference. Greenberg also stated that he was friends with Elliot, who worked on the mayoral transition campaign.
It’s not the first time an attacker has live-streamed a shooting rampage. The gunman who killed 10 people in a racially motivated shooting at a Buffalo, New York, grocery store in May 2022, as well as the attacker who killed 51 people in two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, had both live-streamed their attacks.
