Louisville, Kentucky bank mass shooting, suspect dead

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A gunman opened fire at a bank in downtown Louisville on Monday, leaving four dead — including at least two friends of Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear — and wounding eight others, authorities said.

The shooter, described as a current or former employee of Old National Bank, also wounded two responding police officers, one critically, officials said.

The attacker was killed not long after the 8:30 a.m. ET shooting unfolded at 333 E. Main St., Louisville Metro Police Department Deputy Chief Paul Humphrey said.

Responding officers exchanged gunfire with the gunman, police said, but it wasn’t immediately clear if the shooter died from police gunfire or a self-inflicted wound.

Beshear fought back tears, telling reporters two of the people who died and one of the people wounded were friends of his.

"This is awful," Beshear said, adding that his 2015 campaign for attorney general was based at that building. "I have a very close friend who didn't make it today, and I have another close friend who didn't either, and one who is at the hospital that I hope is going to make it through."

Responding officers exchanged gunfire with the gunman, police said, but it wasn’t immediately clear if the shooter died from police gunfire or a self-inflicted wound.

Beshear fought back tears, telling reporters two of the people who died and one of the people wounded were friends of his.

"This is awful," Beshear said, adding that his 2015 campaign for attorney general was based at that building. "I have a very close friend who didn't make it today, and I have another close friend who didn't either, and one who is at the hospital that I hope is going to make it through."

Responding officers exchanged gunfire with the gunman, police said, but it wasn’t immediately clear if the shooter died from police gunfire or a self-inflicted wound.

Beshear fought back tears, telling reporters two of the people who died and one of the people wounded were friends of his.

"This is awful," Beshear said, adding that his 2015 campaign for attorney general was based at that building. "I have a very close friend who didn't make it today, and I have another close friend who didn't either, and one who is at the hospital that I hope is going to make it through."

Responding officers exchanged gunfire with the gunman, police said, but it wasn’t immediately clear if the shooter died from police gunfire or a self-inflicted wound.

Beshear fought back tears, telling reporters two of the people who died and one of the people wounded were friends of his.

"This is awful," Beshear said, adding that his 2015 campaign for attorney general was based at that building. "I have a very close friend who didn't make it today, and I have another close friend who didn't either, and one who is at the hospital that I hope is going to make it through."

Responding officers exchanged gunfire with the gunman, police said, but it wasn’t immediately clear if the shooter died from police gunfire or a self-inflicted wound.

Beshear fought back tears, telling reporters two of the people who died and one of the people wounded were friends of his.

"This is awful," Beshear said, adding that his 2015 campaign for attorney general was based at that building. "I have a very close friend who didn't make it today, and I have another close friend who didn't either, and one who is at the hospital that I hope is going to make it through."

The gunman is believed to be an employee and may have had mental health issues, according to a federal law enforcement source who has been briefed on the attack.

Two officers were wounded, with one rushed into surgery and another with a non-life-threatening injury, Humphrey said.

A Louisville bank employee armed with a rifle opened fire at his workplace 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, Louisville Metro Police Department Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel said. The city’s mayor, Craig Greenberg, called the attack “an evil act of targeted violence.”

The shooting, the 15th mass killing in the country this year, comes just two weeks after a former student killed three children and three adults at a Christian elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee, about 160 miles (260 kilometers) to the south. That state’s governor and his wife also had friends killed in that shooting.

In Louisville, the chief identified the shooter as 25-year-old Connor Sturgeon, who she said was livestreaming during the attack.

“That’s tragic to know that that incident was out there and captured,” she said.

Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, said in a statement that it had “quickly removed the livestream of this tragic incident this morning.”

A man who fled the building during the shooting told WHAS-TV that the shooter opened fire with a long rifle in a conference room in the back of the building’s first floor.

“Whoever was next to me got shot — blood is on me from it,” he told the news station, pointing to his shirt. He said he fled to a break room and shut the door.

Nine people, including two police officers, were treated for injuries, University of Louisville Hospital spokeswoman Heather Fountaine said in an email. One of the wounded, identified as 57-year-old Deana Eckert, later died, police said Monday night.

One of the wounded officers, 26-year-old Nickolas Wilt, graduated from the police academy on March 31. He was in critical condition after being shot in the head and having surgery, the police chief said. At least three patients had been discharged.

Gunman legally bought assault rifle a week ago
Video from the body cameras of officers who responded to the shooting rampage at a bank here that left five victims dead will be released later Tuesday, the police chief said.

Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel also confirmed that the shooter was a bank employee and that he legally purchased the gun – an AR-15 rifle – at a local gun dealer on April 4. Mayor Craig Greenberg said he could not confirm reports that the shooter had been fired from his job.

Gunman was a bank employee
According to his LinkedIn profile taken down after the shooting, Sturgeon was a summer intern at the bank starting in 2018 and graduated from the University of Alabama, where he got both bachelor's and master's degrees by the end of 2020.

Sturgeon lived in Louisville but grew up in Indiana. He graduated from Floyd Central High School, where he played basketball. His father, Todd Sturgeon, was head basketball coach at the high school.

Names, stories of shooting victims emerge
All five people killed at the scene were bank employees. Thomas Elliott was a senior vice president of commercial real estate at Old National Bank and a friend of Beshear. Juliana Farmer was a loan analyst at the bank, and Deana Eckert was an executive administrator who had worked in banking in Kentucky for 31 years. James Tutt, the commercial real estate market executive for the southern region at the bank, started with the company in January 2015. Josh Barrick was the bank's senior vice president of commercial real estate for less than a year.

The Louisville bank shooter who killed five and injured eight was seeing a counselor for depression and anxiety, a family friend said Thursday.

"His family was working with him and through it," Peter Palmer, an Indiana-based lawyer who is friends with the shooter's father, said in a phone call. "That’s about the extent of what they’re comfortable sharing at this point."

Palmer is not representing the family and is a spokesperson on their behalf. He said he does not know how long the shooter, Connor Sturgeon, had been seeking treatment and is unaware of any medication he may have been taking.

In a statement Tuesday, the family said Sturgeon had "mental health challenges" that they were "actively addressing."

The shooter who killed five co-workers at a Louisville, Kentucky, bank this month left two very extensive notes – one in his home and one found on him after police killed him in a shootout, according to two law enforcement sources.

The notes reveal that part of the shooter’s goal was to show how easy it was in America for someone dealing with a serious mental illness to buy an assault-style weapon, the sources said.

The gunman purchased the AR-15-style rifle seven days before the April 10 shooting and under Kentucky law he was only required to fill out a form for the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and to undergo an FBI records check to ensure he was not a felon or the subject of a court-imposed restraining order.

Pete Palmer, who represents the family of shooter Connor Sturgeon, has not responded to CNN’s request for comment.

After the shooting, Sturgeon’s family told CNN affiliate WDRB it knew the 25-year-old struggled with depression, but saw no signs he was planning or capable of deadly violence.

“While Connor, like many of his contemporaries, had mental health challenges which we, as a family, were actively addressing, there were never any warning signs or indications he was capable of this shocking act,” the family said in a statement to WDRB.

The shooter’s brain will be examined for signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, commonly known as CTE, his father has told CNN.

The disease has a variety of symptoms including memory loss, confusion, impaired judgment, aggression, depression, anxiety, impulse control issues and sometimes suicidal behavior, but experts note that symptoms like these may not necessarily be caused by CTE.

Authorities have not released a motive for the shootings.