Police body camera footage shows the moment US officers were shot at as they arrived at the scene of a massacre at a bank in Louisville, Kentucky, where five employees were killed and eight people injured.
Both of the officers captured in the footage were injured by bullets, before one succeeded in taking down the gunman - Old National Bank employee Connor Sturgeon, 25.
The video released on Tuesday shows the chaotic moment the two officers arrived at the scene, as the shooter rained bullets down on them.
One of the pair - a rookie officer who had been in the job just 10 days - was shot in the head within minutes of arriving, while his partner was grazed by a bullet and sought cover while trying to take down the shooter.
Louisville Metro Police Department Deputy Chief Paul Humphrey praised the responding officers.
Here are our HERO Officers. Ofc. Nickolas Wilt (L) and Ofc. Cory "CJ" Galloway (R). Both are assigned to LMPD's First Division. Officer Wilt graduated on 3-31-23. Officer Galloway is a Training Officer and has been an Officer since 2018. #LMPD #Heroes pic.twitter.com/Ai8lvJQBTh
— LMPD (@LMPD) April 11, 2023
Police were called shortly before 8.40am, and the two officers arrived three minutes later. They had not yet left their patrol car when Sturgeon began firing at them.
“Back up, back up, back up,” one officer can be heard shouting as gunshots thunder.
One still image from surveillance video showed shooter Sturgeon holding a rifle, wearing jeans, a blue button-down shirt and sneakers, surrounded by broken glass inside the building.
He had already shot several people inside, and police said he set up an ambush position so he could attack officers as they arrived.
“I think you can see the tension in that video,” Mr Humphrey said on Tuesday. “You can understand the stress that those officers are going through.
“They did absolutely exactly what they needed to do to save lives. Once officers arrived on scene, not another person was shot.”
One officer was still in critical but stable condition on Tuesday, according to University of Louisville Hospital Chief Medical Officer Jason Smith.
Two of the four wounded still in hospital had injuries that were not life-threatening, Dr Smith said.
Police Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel said at a news conference that bank employee Sturgeon bought the AR-15 assault-style rifle used in the attack at a local dealership on April 4.
Armed with the rifle, Sturgeon killed his co-workers — including a close friend of Kentucky’s governor — while livestreaming the attack.
“We do know this was targeted. He knew those individuals, of course, because he worked there,” Ms Gwinn-Villaroel said, but didn’t give an indication of a motive behind the shooting.
Ms Gwinn-Villaroel praised the “heroic actions” of officers who engaged the shooter without hesitation when they arrived.
“They went towards danger in order to save and preserve life,” she said. “They stopped the threat so other lives could be saved. No hesitation, and they did what they were called do to.”
Five Old National Bank employees were killed: Joshua Barrick, 40, a senior vice president; Tommy Elliott, 63, also a senior vice president; Jim Tutt Jr, 64, a commercial property executive; Juliana Farmer, 45, a loan analyst; and Deana Eckert, 57, an executive administrative officer.
The shooting, the 15th mass killing in the US 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 to the south.
