(Trends Wide) —At least five people were killed and eight more were injured in a shooting Monday at a Louisville, Kentucky bank, police said.
The victims, ranging in age from 40 to 64, were identified as Joshua Barrick, Juliana Farmer, Tommy Elliott, James Tutt and Deana Eckert, according to authorities.
A bank employee, identified by police as 25-year-old Connor Sturgeon, opened fire at his workplace and livestreamed the attack on Instagram, according to investigators. The video was later removed. The attacker was killed by the Police, after an exchange of shots.
Two people embrace outside the building where a mass shooting took place in Louisville on Monday. Credit: Michael Clevenger/Courier Journal/AP
Timeline of the shooting
The mass shooting began at the Old National Bank on East Main Street just after 8:30 a.m., police said, about 30 minutes before the location opened to the public. It happened during a morning meeting of employees, which some attended in person and others virtually, Rebecca Buchheit-Sims, a bank manager, told Trends Wide. She witnessed from her computer how her co-workers were shot.
A man who spoke to local broadcaster WLKY said he received a “traumatic” call from his wife at 8:30 am informing him that an attacker was active and that she was locked in a vault at Old National Bank.
The man, Caleb Goodlett, called 911, but officers were already aware. The man said his wife “is fine.”
Officers arrived at the bank within three minutes of being called to find the shooter still firing, Louisville Metropolitan Police Deputy Chief Paul Humphrey said. The officers exchanged fire with the gunman and killed him, Gwinn-Villaroel said.
Buchheit-Sims said the shooting unfolded very quickly.
“Shortly after the meeting started, the shooter started shooting in the conference room,” Buchheit-Sims said. “I witnessed people being murdered. I don’t know how else to put it.”
He said that Sturgeon, with whom he did not work closely, had a “drab personality. His temper is quite calm. I have never seen him get angry or upset over anything in public. He was quite laid back.”
He also added that he was not aware of any previous complaints or threats from Sturgeon. He remembered him as someone “extremely intelligent”.
Police step on broken glass at the Old National Bank in Louisville, Kentucky, Monday after a mass shooting. Credit: WDRB
Mayor Craig Greenberg thanked the “brave and heroic” first responders for their actions. “Without a doubt their actions saved lives,” he said.
In the hours after the shooting, a large police presence blocked off much of the downtown street. Broken glass was strewn at the entrance to the Old National Bank, video from Trends Wide affiliate WDRB shows.
“He was one of my best friends”
Governor Beshear told a news conference that one of the victims in the shooting, Tommy Elliot, was “one of my best friends.” Elliott was a senior vice president at the bank, according to his LinkedIn profile.
“Tommy Elliott helped me build my law career, he helped me become governor, he gave me advice on being a good father,” Beshear said. “He is one of the people I talked to the most in the world and we rarely talked about my work. He was an incredible friend.”
Thomas Elliott Credit: Courtesy of Baptist Health Louisville
A rookie officer was shot in the head, according to police
Officer Nickolas Wilt Credit: Louisville Police Department
Nickolas Wilt, a 26-year-old rookie officer, ran into the gunfight and was shot in the head, the police chief said. He is in critical condition.
Wilt had graduated from the police academy on March 31, just 10 days before the shooting.
The attacker was notified of his upcoming layoff, according to a source
The gunman who was killed was identified as Connor Sturgeon, an employee of Old National Bank, according to Acting Louisville Metropolitan Police Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel.
Connor Sturgeon (Del pefil Connor Sturgeon/LinkedIn)
Sturgeon had worked at the bank for more than a year but had been notified that he was going to be fired, according to a police source familiar with the investigation.
Sturgeon wrote a note to his parents and a friend stating that he was going to open fire at the bank, the source said. It’s unclear if that note was on paper or emailed, or if it was seen before or after the incident, according to the source.
The shooting was broadcast live on Instagram and has since been removed from the platform, though not immediately. Police are in possession of the video, according to the source.
Sturgeon wrote on his LinkedIn profile that he interned at the bank for three consecutive summers between 2018 and 2020 before joining full-time in June 2021.
He graduated from the University of Alabama in December 2020 with a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in finance, according to a university spokesperson.
A former high school classmate who knew him and his family well said he never saw any “kind of a red flag or sign that this could ever happen.”
“He was a really good kid who came from a really good family,” said the classmate, who asked not to be named and has not spoken to Sturgeon in recent years. “I can’t even tell you how nonsense this is. I can’t believe it.”
In a 2018 college essay posted on the CourseHero website, a user identified as a University of Alabama student named Connor Sturgeon wrote that he had struggled to fit in at school.
“My self-esteem has long been an issue for me,” the essay said. “As a physically late-developer in middle school and high school, I struggled to a degree to fit in, and this has given me a somewhat negative self-image that persists today. Making friends has never been particularly easy, so I have more experience than most in working alone.
The author wrote that in college I had “started to mature socially and am beginning to see improvements in this regard”, and that he hoped “to become more self-aware and start to be a ‘better’ person”.
Law enforcement officers respond to an active shooting at the Old National Bank building Monday in Louisville, Kentucky. Credit: Luke Sharrett/Getty Images
Old National Bank has two locations, one in Evansville, Indiana and one in Chicago, and has more than 250 banking centers throughout the Midwest. The bank’s executive team is headed to Louisville, the company said on Facebook.
“The safety of Old National Bank employees and everyone we serve in our banking centers is paramount,” said Old National CEO Jim Ryan. “While we await further details, we are extending employee relief support and keeping all those affected by this tragedy in our thoughts and prayers.”
Wave of gun violence
President Joe Biden condemned the latest mass shooting and called on Republicans in Congress to take action on gun laws.
“Jill and I pray for the lives lost and affected by today’s shooting. Too many Americans are paying the price for inaction with their lives. When will Republicans in Congress act to protect our communities?” Biden said in a tweet.
The shooting is just the latest example of the wave of mass gun violence, a uniquely American phenomenon. There have been at least 145 mass shootings in the United States this year, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive, which, like Trends Wide, defines a mass shooting as one in which at least four people are shot, excluding the shooter.
The weapon used in the shooting was an AR-15 type rifle, a source from the federal security forces told Trends Wide. The AR-15, a semi-automatic rifle, is the most popular sporting rifle in the United States, with about 24.6 million people owning an AR-15 or similar-style rifle, according to the 2021 National Firearms Survey. .
The AR-15 and its derivatives have been the weapon of choice in many of the most egregious mass shootings of recent times, including the one at Connecticut’s Sandy Hook School, at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, at a party in San Bernardino, California and a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. In Nashville just two weeks ago, a shooter used an AR-15-style weapon and two other handguns in a mass shooting at a private Christian elementary school, killing three adults and three 9-year-olds.
The Louisville metropolitan area, located along the Kentucky-Indiana border, has a population of approximately 630,000 people, according to the 2020 census.
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(Trends Wide) —At least five people were killed and eight more were injured in a shooting Monday at a Louisville, Kentucky bank, police said.
The victims, ranging in age from 40 to 64, were identified as Joshua Barrick, Juliana Farmer, Tommy Elliott, James Tutt and Deana Eckert, according to authorities.
A bank employee, identified by police as 25-year-old Connor Sturgeon, opened fire at his workplace and livestreamed the attack on Instagram, according to investigators. The video was later removed. The attacker was killed by the Police, after an exchange of shots.
Two people embrace outside the building where a mass shooting took place in Louisville on Monday. Credit: Michael Clevenger/Courier Journal/AP
Timeline of the shooting
The mass shooting began at the Old National Bank on East Main Street just after 8:30 a.m., police said, about 30 minutes before the location opened to the public. It happened during a morning meeting of employees, which some attended in person and others virtually, Rebecca Buchheit-Sims, a bank manager, told Trends Wide. She witnessed from her computer how her co-workers were shot.
A man who spoke to local broadcaster WLKY said he received a “traumatic” call from his wife at 8:30 am informing him that an attacker was active and that she was locked in a vault at Old National Bank.
The man, Caleb Goodlett, called 911, but officers were already aware. The man said his wife “is fine.”
Officers arrived at the bank within three minutes of being called to find the shooter still firing, Louisville Metropolitan Police Deputy Chief Paul Humphrey said. The officers exchanged fire with the gunman and killed him, Gwinn-Villaroel said.
Buchheit-Sims said the shooting unfolded very quickly.
“Shortly after the meeting started, the shooter started shooting in the conference room,” Buchheit-Sims said. “I witnessed people being murdered. I don’t know how else to put it.”
He said that Sturgeon, with whom he did not work closely, had a “drab personality. His temper is quite calm. I have never seen him get angry or upset over anything in public. He was quite laid back.”
He also added that he was not aware of any previous complaints or threats from Sturgeon. He remembered him as someone “extremely intelligent”.
Police step on broken glass at the Old National Bank in Louisville, Kentucky, Monday after a mass shooting. Credit: WDRB
Mayor Craig Greenberg thanked the “brave and heroic” first responders for their actions. “Without a doubt their actions saved lives,” he said.
In the hours after the shooting, a large police presence blocked off much of the downtown street. Broken glass was strewn at the entrance to the Old National Bank, video from Trends Wide affiliate WDRB shows.
“He was one of my best friends”
Governor Beshear told a news conference that one of the victims in the shooting, Tommy Elliot, was “one of my best friends.” Elliott was a senior vice president at the bank, according to his LinkedIn profile.
“Tommy Elliott helped me build my law career, he helped me become governor, he gave me advice on being a good father,” Beshear said. “He is one of the people I talked to the most in the world and we rarely talked about my work. He was an incredible friend.”
Thomas Elliott Credit: Courtesy of Baptist Health Louisville
A rookie officer was shot in the head, according to police
Officer Nickolas Wilt Credit: Louisville Police Department
Nickolas Wilt, a 26-year-old rookie officer, ran into the gunfight and was shot in the head, the police chief said. He is in critical condition.
Wilt had graduated from the police academy on March 31, just 10 days before the shooting.
The attacker was notified of his upcoming layoff, according to a source
The gunman who was killed was identified as Connor Sturgeon, an employee of Old National Bank, according to Acting Louisville Metropolitan Police Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel.
Connor Sturgeon (Del pefil Connor Sturgeon/LinkedIn)
Sturgeon had worked at the bank for more than a year but had been notified that he was going to be fired, according to a police source familiar with the investigation.
Sturgeon wrote a note to his parents and a friend stating that he was going to open fire at the bank, the source said. It’s unclear if that note was on paper or emailed, or if it was seen before or after the incident, according to the source.
The shooting was broadcast live on Instagram and has since been removed from the platform, though not immediately. Police are in possession of the video, according to the source.
Sturgeon wrote on his LinkedIn profile that he interned at the bank for three consecutive summers between 2018 and 2020 before joining full-time in June 2021.
He graduated from the University of Alabama in December 2020 with a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in finance, according to a university spokesperson.
A former high school classmate who knew him and his family well said he never saw any “kind of a red flag or sign that this could ever happen.”
“He was a really good kid who came from a really good family,” said the classmate, who asked not to be named and has not spoken to Sturgeon in recent years. “I can’t even tell you how nonsense this is. I can’t believe it.”
In a 2018 college essay posted on the CourseHero website, a user identified as a University of Alabama student named Connor Sturgeon wrote that he had struggled to fit in at school.
“My self-esteem has long been an issue for me,” the essay said. “As a physically late-developer in middle school and high school, I struggled to a degree to fit in, and this has given me a somewhat negative self-image that persists today. Making friends has never been particularly easy, so I have more experience than most in working alone.
The author wrote that in college I had “started to mature socially and am beginning to see improvements in this regard”, and that he hoped “to become more self-aware and start to be a ‘better’ person”.
Law enforcement officers respond to an active shooting at the Old National Bank building Monday in Louisville, Kentucky. Credit: Luke Sharrett/Getty Images
Old National Bank has two locations, one in Evansville, Indiana and one in Chicago, and has more than 250 banking centers throughout the Midwest. The bank’s executive team is headed to Louisville, the company said on Facebook.
“The safety of Old National Bank employees and everyone we serve in our banking centers is paramount,” said Old National CEO Jim Ryan. “While we await further details, we are extending employee relief support and keeping all those affected by this tragedy in our thoughts and prayers.”
Wave of gun violence
President Joe Biden condemned the latest mass shooting and called on Republicans in Congress to take action on gun laws.
“Jill and I pray for the lives lost and affected by today’s shooting. Too many Americans are paying the price for inaction with their lives. When will Republicans in Congress act to protect our communities?” Biden said in a tweet.
The shooting is just the latest example of the wave of mass gun violence, a uniquely American phenomenon. There have been at least 145 mass shootings in the United States this year, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive, which, like Trends Wide, defines a mass shooting as one in which at least four people are shot, excluding the shooter.
The weapon used in the shooting was an AR-15 type rifle, a source from the federal security forces told Trends Wide. The AR-15, a semi-automatic rifle, is the most popular sporting rifle in the United States, with about 24.6 million people owning an AR-15 or similar-style rifle, according to the 2021 National Firearms Survey. .
The AR-15 and its derivatives have been the weapon of choice in many of the most egregious mass shootings of recent times, including the one at Connecticut’s Sandy Hook School, at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, at a party in San Bernardino, California and a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. In Nashville just two weeks ago, a shooter used an AR-15-style weapon and two other handguns in a mass shooting at a private Christian elementary school, killing three adults and three 9-year-olds.
The Louisville metropolitan area, located along the Kentucky-Indiana border, has a population of approximately 630,000 people, according to the 2020 census.
