Including what we know about the gunman.
There’s been another mass shooting in America. This time the tragedy unfolded within a Louisville bank, where a 25-year-old opened fire Monday morning. The gunman killed at least five people and wounded nine others, and he was confirmed dead at the scene. He live-streamed the whole gruesome attack on social media.
“Let’s be clear about what this was,” Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said. “This was an evil act of targeted violence.”
Here’s what we know so far about the shooter and the chaos that occurred in downtown Louisville.
The Louisville bank shooting victims
At about 8:30 a.m., police said Connor Sturgeon began firing a rifle inside Old National Bank, which is located in downtown Louisville. He began shooting in a conference room during a morning staff meeting. The suspect was still shooting when police exchanged fire and killed him, Louisville Metro Police Department Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel told reporters.
“This is a tragic event,” Deputy Police Chief Paul Humphrey said. “But it was the heroic response of officers that made sure that no more people were seriously injured than what happened.”
At least one colleague who’d joined the meeting via camera watched on in horror. “I witnessed people being murdered. I don’t know how else to say that,” Rebecca Buchheit-Sims, a manager at the bank, told CNN.
The four people killed on the scene were identified as Tommy Elliott, Josh Barrick, Jim Tutt, and Juliana Farmer. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said Elliott was a close friend. “Tommy Elliott helped me build my law career, helped me become governor, gave me advice on being a good dad,” he told the Associated Press. “He’s one of the people I talked to most in the world, and very rarely were we talking about my job. He was an incredible friend.”
A fifth victim who’d been hospitalized, 57-year-old Deana Eckert, died later Monday.
Eight more people are being treated for injuries, including two officers. One of the officers, Nickolas Wilt, a 26-year-old who graduated from the police academy just last month, was shot in the head and remains in critical condition.
Who is the Louisville shooter, Connor Sturgeon, and what was his motive?
Police said that Sturgeon, who they described as a “lone gunman,” had worked at the bank. Authorities did not provide a motive for the shooting, but Sturgeon had reportedly been notified that he would soon be fired. He left a note for his parents and a friend indicating that he planned to carry out an attack. Sturgeon broadcast his attack online.
“Unfortunately that’s tragic — to know that incident was out there and captured,” Gwinn-Villaroel said. She added that investigators are currently trying to scrub the video from the internet.
According to his LinkedIn profile, which was removed after the shooting, Sturgeon graduated from the University of Alabama, where he received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. He began working full-time for Old National Bank in 2021, USA Today reports.
How many mass shootings have there been so far in 2023?
This horrific incident is the 146th mass shooting to have taken place in the U.S. this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. (The nonprofit research group defines a mass shooting as an incident where at least four people were killed or injured.) That’s more than there had been over the same period (Jan. 1 through April 10) in the previous four years.
According to another database, which tracks shootings where at least four or more people were killed other than the perpetrator, the Louisville attack was the year’s 15th mass killing. That’s the most to occur during the first 100 days of a calendar year since 2009, the Associated Press reports.
