Sandy MaloneLouisville, KY – The 23-year-old employee of Old National Bank who killed four people and wounded nine others Monday morning in Louisville livestreamed the massacre on social media.
Law enforcement sources told CNN that the gunman had been employed by the bank for more than a year but had received noticed that he was going to be terminated.
One source said that the would-be mass shooter left notes for his parents and friends that said he was going to shoot up the bank.
The source wasn’t sure how the notes were delivered to the intended recipients or when they were received, according to CNN.
All of that evidence is now in the hands of law enforcement.
Police said the gunman livestreamed his attack on his bank colleagues on Instagram and it remained up for a period of time before law enforcement became aware of it and had it taken down.
His LinkedIn profile indicated that the mass murderer had worked at for Old National Bank for three summers before joining it full time in June of 2021, CNN reported.
The gunman graduated from University of Alabama with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in finance, a university spokesman told reporters.
He grew up in a Louisville suburb and played basketball and ran track, CNN reported.
The future killer was a Nation Merit Scholarship semifinalist in 2015.
Former classmates told CNN that they had never seen any red flags in the gunman’s behavior, CNN reported.
“He was a really good kid who came from a really good family,” a classmate who hadn’t been in recent touch with the shooter said. “I can’t even say how much this doesn’t make sense. I can’t believe it.”
The gunman’s father, Ted Sturgeon, was the head basketball coach at University of Indiana for 10 years and later coached and taught at his son’s high school, according to CNN.
LMPD said authorities began receiving 911 calls at about 8:30 a.m. on April 10 from people trapped inside the Old National Bank located in the 300-block of East Main Street, close to Louisville Slugger Field and Waterfront Park, WHAS reported.
The call was initially put out as an “active shooter,” but then changed to an “active aggressor” shortly thereafter, according to WAVE.
The call was initially put out as an “active shooter,” but then changed to an “active aggressor” shortly thereafter, according to WAVE.
LMPD Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel said that the first officers to arrive on the scene were at the bank within three minutes, the Courier Journal reported.
LMPD Deputy Chief Paul Humphrey said that officers responding to the scene could hear gunfire inside the bank building.
Deputy Chief Humphrey said the brave officers rushed into the bank and confronted the gunman, engaging in a gun battle that left several officers wounded and the gunman dead, WAVE reported.
“The officers returned fire and stopped that threat,” Chief Gwinn-Villaroel told reporters at the second media briefing of the afternoon.
LMPD said three victims were in critical condition, including a police officer, and three were in non-critical condition, the Courier Journal reported.
Three more victims were treated for their wounds and released, including one of the injured officers, according to officials.
Chief Gwinn-Villaroel said at the press conference that one officer had been grazed on the left side and another had sustained minor injuries to his elbow during the gunfight.
A third officer was shot in the head, according to the chief.
She identified the wounded hero as 23-year-old LMPD Officer Nicholas Wilt who had just graduated from the police academy on March 31.
“Nick has come out of brain surgery and is critical but stable condition,” Chief Gwinn-Villaroel told reporters.
The gunman has been identified as 25-year-old Connor Sturgeon, a recent University of Alabama graduate, the Associated Press reported.
Authorities have identified the other victims of the gunman who died at the scene as Josh Barrick, Tommy Elliott, Jim Tutt, and Juliana Farmer, the Courier Journal reported.
The incident occurred before the bank had opened for the day, while employees were gathered for a weekly meeting in a first-floor conference room.
“There are multiple casualties,” LMPD tweeted just after 9:30 a.m., describing the situation as an “active aggressor.”
Witnesses described the gunman has having a “long assault rifle” and firing multiple shots inside the bank on the first floor near the conference room.
“He just started firing,” one witness told WHAS. “I didn’t see his face. We were in the conference room. Whoever was next to me got shot, their blood’s on me.”
Other witnesses described seeing responding police officers getting into a gunfight with the suspect in the bank.
Multiple wounded civilians were seen being carried out of the bank, WHAS reported.
Police updated the public at 10:16 a.m. that the gunman had been killed.
“There is no longer an active aggressor threat. The suspected shooter has been neutralized,” LMPD tweeted.
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear posted his sympathies to social media and said he knew two of the victims of the mass shooting and was headed to Louisville, WHAS reported.
“This is awful,” Beshear said. “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’s at the hospital that I hope is going to make it through.”
Agents from the Louisville office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive (ATF) are assisting LMPD and other local law enforcement agencies at the scene.
Deputy Chief Humphrey credited the brave officers’ quick response for the fact that more lives weren’t lost in the mass shooting, the Associated Press reported.
“This is a tragic event,” he said. “But it was it was the heroic response of officers that made sure that no more people were more seriously injured than what happened.”
Holly Matkin
