'One degree away from anybody else': Louisville shooting touches neighbors, governor alike

As downtown Louisville was coming to life on the morning after Easter, police cruisers raced down Main Street toward a glass-and-steel building near the Ohio River.

Inside, around 8:30 a.m., as police would say later, a 25-year-old employee of the Old National Bank had opened fire on his colleagues with a rifle, livestreaming as he attacked.

Within minutes, Louisville officers, including a 26-year-old officer who had graduated from the police academy just two weeks earlier, rushed in. The boom of gunfire could be heard ricocheting off nearby condos, hotels and bourbon distilleries.

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When it was over, the mayor of Kentucky’s largest city – who himself narrowly survived a shooting at his campaign office only last year – said the city had been hit by an “evil act of targeted violence.”

By the day’s end, six people were dead, including the shooter. Eight had been hospitalized. And the rookie officer, Nickolas Wilt, had undergone brain surgery after being shot in the head.

"Today is a day that is heartbreaking for our city," Mayor Craig Greenberg said.

It marked the nation’s 15th mass shooting this year in which four or more people were killed, according to a to a national database, and came two weeks after a former student killed six at Nashville Christian elementary, 180 miles to the south.

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Mapping the incident: Old National Bank shooting  

A city draws closer

In Louisville, an Ohio River city of about 633,000 that is a place of close-knit communities, the shooting sparked grief, anger and shock. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who was born here, choked back tears as he said he lost a close friend.

“In Louisville, you’re one degree (of separation) away from anybody else,” said Barbara Hedspeth, a clinical social worker, explaining at a vigil Monday night that the city’s connectedness seemed to amplify the pain.

The death toll surpassed that of a 2018 shooting that drew national attention when a gunman killed two Black residents at a suburban Kroger.

On Monday, city and state officials – and President Joe Biden – praised the response of the Louisville Metro Police Department.

“There is no doubt in my mind that their efforts saved lives,” Beshear said.

Police identified the suspect as Connor Sturgeon, 25, a bank employee. Metro Police Department Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel said he entered the bank with a rifle and livestreamed the attack before he was shot and killed in an exchange of gunfire with police. She has not cited a possible motive.

Sturgeon, who records show attended a nearby high school over the Ohio River in southern Indiana, started working full-time for Old National Bank in June 2021, according to his LinkedIn profile, which has been taken down.

Later in the day Monday, police had set up roadblocks on either side of a home at an address associated with Sturgeon in a Louisville neighborhood. Police later removed bags of evidence.

“It’s unbelievable it could happen here, somebody on my street,” said Kami Cooper, who lives in the neighborhood where the suspect lived.

A city of iconic spaces and controversies

The shooting happened in a part of downtown Louisville near a hotel, condos and Slugger Field, a minor league baseball park named for the baseball bat first turned out of a German immigrant’s carpentry shop here more than a century ago. The riverfront park nearby hosts concerts and events, especially for the spectators that flood this city for the Kentucky Derby every May.

The city’s downtown is also where protests wrenched Louisville in 2020 after police officers shot and killed Breonna Taylor, helping fuel the national outcry over the deaths of Black Americans at the hands of police. Just last month, a Justice Department inquiry launched in the wake of Taylor’s death found a pattern of discriminatory policing.

The bank operated quietly in a mixed-use building with five floors of commercial space and two upper floors of condominiums, its iconic tipped roof a contrast to the city’s nearby stretch of historic facades.

Troy Haste, a bank worker, told WHAS-TV he was in a first-floor conference room and could hear an assault rifle click.

“And he just started shooting,” he said, showing blood on his shirt from someone nearby.

Terrance Sullivan, who lives in the building, said he was walking home from the gym around 8:30 a.m. when he saw police cars speed the wrong way down Main Street.

A number of officers got out, rifles raised, and ran into the bank building, he said.

He heard 10 to 15 shots fired and people screaming.

“The sound is what I keep thinking about,” he said. “It was so loud.”

Police said the whole event – from the start of the assault to the time the assault was killed – spanned just nine minutes.

The violence was compounded by a second, unrelated shooting later Monday near the city’s community college that left one person dead and one injured.

At the bank shooting, nine people, including two police officers, were initially treated for injuries. Three were in critical condition as of Monday afternoon, including the rookie officer, who had brain surgery, said Dr. Jason W. Smith of the University of Louisville Hospital.

As the familiar script of regular mass shootings unfolded, Biden called on Republican lawmakers to pass gun safety measures such as requiring safe storage of firearms, background checks for people buying guns and eliminating the immunity from liability from gun manufacturers.

In Kentucky, the Republican-controlled Legislature has sought to go in the other direction in recent years. In 2019 it passed a bill to do away with permitting restrictions to carry a concealed firearm. That bill was signed into law by Beshear’s predecessor, Republican Gov. Matt Bevin.

Last month, Kentucky lawmakers approved a so-called 2nd Amendment Sanctuary bill that became law without the governor’s signature. It prohibits local law enforcement agencies in Kentucky from enforcing federal firearm regulations. Similar measures have been found unconstitutional in other states, opponents argued.

Kathy Mekus, a member of the state chapter of the gun safety group Moms Demand Action, said Monday in Louisville that Kentucky’s weak gun laws need changing.

“There’s no reason why we should have to live like this,” she said.

Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, said on Twitter that he was “devastated” by the news and praised law enforcement: “We send our prayers to the victims, their families, and the city of Louisville as we await more information.”

A city in mourning

In the meantime, the city was mourning the people who worked at the bank: Josh Barrick, 40, James "Jim" Tutt Jr., 64, and Juliana Farmer, 45, a loan analyst with the bank whose post on a Facebook page celebrated her expecting another grandchild.

Also killed was Thomas "Tommy" Elliott, 63, who Beshear said had helped him build his legal career and was “an incredible friend.”

Later in the evening, police announced another person had died: Deana Eckert, 57, whose Facebook page said she was an executive administrative officer at the bank.

“These are irreplaceable, amazing individuals that a terrible act of violence tore from all of us,” the governor said.

The city set up a family assistance center, said Greenberg, the mayor, who reminded the public that he faced gunfire before he was elected to a term that began this year.

“I’m a survivor of a workplace shooting,” he said. “To the people who survived, whether you were physically hurt or not, I know that you’re hurting, too.”

As the evening wore on, vigils sprouted up across the city.

At one Presbyterian church in a quiet neighborhood, a musician played a mournful flute and faith leaders spoke as dozens of residents and TV cameras gathered.

Rabbi Ben Freed of a local temple said his phone had been inundated with texts throughout the morning asking, “Hey, are you OK?”

And he echoed the familiar mix of grief, shock and despair that keeps repeating in cities across a nation beset by gun violence:

“It is both shocking and yet, at the same time, painfully not shocking.”

Contributing: The Louisville Courier Journal; The Associated Press

Chris Kenning is a national correspondent. Reach him at ckenning@usatoday.com and on Twitter @chris_kenning.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Louisville shooting: A city reels amid latest mass shooting