Global Courant 2023-04-11 05:17:15
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A Louisville bank employee armed with a rifle opened fire at his workplace Monday morning, killing four people — including a close friend of the Kentucky governor — while livestreaming the attack on Instagram, authorities said.
Police arrived as gunfire continued at the Old National Bank and killed the gunman in a shootout, Louisville Police Department Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel said. The city’s mayor, Craig Greenberg, called the attack “a vicious act of targeted violence.”
The shooting, the 15th mass murder 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 south. The governor of that state and his wife also killed friends in that shooting.
In Louisville, the chief identified the shooter as 25-year-old Connor Sturgeon, who she said was livestreaming during the attack.
“It’s tragic to know that that incident was there and documented,” she said.
Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, said in a statement that it “quickly removed the live stream of this tragic incident this morning.”
Social companies have in recent years imposed stricter rules to ban violent and extremist content. They’ve set up systems to remove posts and streams that violate these restrictions, but shocking material like the Louisville shooting continues to slip through the cracks, prompting lawmakers and other critics to lash out at the tech industry for shoddy safeguards. and moderation policy.
Nine people, including two police officers, were treated for injuries from the Louisville shooting, University of Louisville Hospital spokeswoman Heather Fountaine said in an email. One of the 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 undergoing surgery, the police chief said. At least three patients had been discharged.
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said he lost one of his best friends in the shooting — Tommy Elliott — in the building not far from Louisville Slugger Field and Waterfront Park minor league baseball field.
“Tommy Elliott helped me build my career as a lawyer, helped me become governor, gave me advice to be a good father,” Beshear said, his voice trembling with emotion. rarely did we talk about my job. He was an incredible friend.”
Josh Barrick, Jim Tutt and Juliana Farmer were also killed in the shooting, police said.
“These are irreplaceable, amazing individuals that a terrible act of violence has snatched from all of us,” the governor said.
It was the second time Beshear had been personally touched by a mass tragedy since becoming governor.
In late 2021, Dawson Springs, the hometown of Beshear’s father, former Kentucky governor Steve Beshear, was one of the cities devastated by tornadoes. Andy Beshear regularly visited Dawson Springs as a boy and has spoken emotionally about his father’s hometown.
Beshear spoke as the Louisville investigation continued as police searched for a motive. Crime scene detectives could be seen marking and photographing numerous bullet holes in the windows near the front door of the bank.
As part of the investigation, police raided the neighborhood where the suspect lived, about five miles south of the downtown shooting. The street was blocked off as federal and local agents spoke to residents. One home was cordoned off with warning tape. Kami Cooper, who lives nearby, said she couldn’t remember ever meeting the suspect, but said it’s an unnerving feeling to have lived on the same street as someone who could do something like that.
“I am almost speechless. You see it on the news, but not at home,” Cooper said. “It’s unbelievable, it could happen here, someone on my street.”
A man who fled the building during the shooting told WHAS-TV that the gunman opened fire with a long rifle in a conference room at the back of the building’s first floor.
“Whoever sat next to me got shot – there’s blood on me,” he told the news station, pointing to his shirt. He said he fled to a break room and closed the door.
Deputy Police Chief Paul Humphrey said the actions of responding police officers undoubtedly saved lives.
“This is a tragic event,” he said. “But it was the heroic response of officers that ensured that no more people were injured more seriously than what happened.”
Just hours later, a few blocks away, an unrelated shooting killed a man and injured a woman outside a community college, police said.
This year’s 15 mass shootings are the most during the first 100 days of a calendar year since 2009, when there were 16 on April 10, according to a mass murder database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in conjunction with Northeastern University.
Going back to 2006, the first year for which data was collected, 2019 and 2022 were the years with the most mass murders, with 45 and 42 recorded mass murders throughout the calendar year. The pace in 2009 slowed later in the year, with 32 mass killings recorded that year.
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Contributors to this report were Becky Reynolds in Louisville, Bruce Schreiner in Frankfort, Kentucky, Beatrice Dupuy in New York, database journalist Larry Fenn, researchers Rhonda Shafner and Jennifer Farrar in New York, and AP Technology writer Michael Liedtke in San Ramon, California.
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An earlier version incorrectly reported the shooter’s age, based on information from authorities.