LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Another person has died hours after a bank employee armed with a rifle opened fire at his workplace in Louisville Monday morning, authorities said.
Louisville police said Deana Eckert, 57, died after she was taken to the hospital. According to WHAS-TV, Eckert's family said she underwent multiple surgeries but did not make it.
Also killed in the shooting were:
- Joshua Barrick, 40
- Thomas Elliot, 63
- Juliana Farmer, 45
- James Tutt, 64
A man who fled the building during the shooting told WHAS-TV that the shooter, now identified by Louisville police as 25-year-old Connor Sturgeon, 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.
ABC News reported that law enforcement sources said Sturgeon had recently been notified he was going to be fired. The sources told ABC News he left a note to parents and friends indicating he was going to shoot up the bank.
Louisville Metro Police Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel said Sturgeon was shot and killed by police, though not before shooting and wounding two officers, who were both taken to the hospital.
Watch the most recent update from officials here:
One of those officers is 26-year-old Nickolas Wilt who just graduated from the police academy on March 31, Gwinn-Villaroel said. Wilt was shot in the head and underwent brain surgery on Monday; he remains in critical condition, officials said.
Officer Nickolas Wilt, a new officer to the LMPD, ran towards the gunfire today to save lives. He remains in critical condition after being shot in the head. pic.twitter.com/yPNZBfAl7I
— LMPD (@LMPD) April 10, 2023
Gwinn-Villaroel said the gunman was live-streaming the shooting while it happened and police are working to have the stream removed.
“Let’s be clear about what this was,” Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said. “This was an evil act of targeted violence.”
Police arrived as shots were still being fired inside Old National Bank and killed the shooter in an exchange of gunfire, Gwinn-Villaroel said at a news conference.
“The suspect shot at officers,” the police chief said. “We then returned fire and stopped that threat.”
In total, nine people were taken to the hospital following the shooting. Three of those patients, including Eckert and Officer Wilt, were in critical condition. Three were being treating for injuries that the hospital described as "not life-threatening." Three others have been released. Five of the nine patients were treated for gunshot wounds.
“These are irreplaceable, amazing individuals that a terrible act of violence tore from all of us,” Beshear said of the victims.
"I had a very close friend that didn't make it today."Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear makes emotional statement on the deadly mass shooting in Louisville that killed at least four and injured eight others. https://t.co/MtAZB9Pxci pic.twitter.com/OsNiCjiZW9
— ABC News (@ABC) April 10, 2023
This is the second time that Beshear has been personally touched by a mass tragedy since becoming governor.
In late 2021, one of the towns devastated by tornadoes that tore through Kentucky was Dawson Springs, the hometown of Beshear’s father, former two-term Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear. Andy Beshear frequently visited Dawson Springs as a boy and talked emotionally about his father’s hometown.
Beshear spoke as the investigation in Louisville continued and police searched for a motive. Crime scene investigators could be seen marking and photographing numerous bullet holes in the windows near the bank’s front door.
As part of the investigation, police descended on a neighborhood about 5 miles (8 kilometers) south of the downtown shooting. The street was blocked as federal and local officers talked to residents. One home was cordoned off with caution tape.
“I’m almost speechless. You see it on the news but not at home,” said Kami Cooper, 38, who lives in the neighborhood.
Humphrey, the deputy chief, said the actions of responding police officers undoubtedly saved lives.
“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.”
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.
The 15 mass shootings this year are the most during the first 100 days of a calendar year since 2009, when 16 had occurred by April 10, according to a mass killings database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.
Going back to 2006, the first year for which data has been compiled, the years with the most mass killings were 2019 and 2022, with 45 and 42 mass killings recorded during the entire calendar year. The pace in 2009 slowed later in the year, with 32 mass killings recorded that year.
