The 25-year-old bank employee who went into work armed with an AR-15 rifle and killed five colleagues "knew he was going to be fired" and wrote a note to loved ones before the shooting, it has emerged.
Connor Sturgeon had worked on and off at the Old National Bank in Louisville, Kentucky, US, for years, starting out as an intern before joining full time last year, according to his LinkedIn profile.
He was killed in a shootout with police.
Sturgeon wrote a note to loved ones before going to the bank, a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation said.
The source also said Sturgeon knew he was about to be fired.
Police have confirmed he worked at the bank.
Before the shooting he also made a series of ominous social media posts including one that said: "They won't listen to words or protests. Let's see if they hear this."
The note, according to the law enforcement source, to Sturgeon's parents and a friend said he was going to open fire in the bank.
It is not clear whether it was read before the incident.
Sturgeon worked as a summer intern for the Old National Bank for three consecutive years, eventually joining as a commercial development professional in 2021 and a full-time associate and portfolio banker last year, according to his LinkedIn account.
Six people were killed, including the shooter, with nine being taken to hospital for treatment. The five deceased victims were identified as Joshua Barrick, 40, Thomas Elliot, 63, Juliana Farmer, 45, James Tutt, 64, and Deana Eckert, 57.
One of the dead includes a close friend of Kentucky's governor.
One of the injured was Louisville Metro Police Department Officer Nickolas Wilt, who was shot in the head and is in critical condition.
Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel, the interim chief of the police department. said Wilt is in critical but stable condition at a hospital and underwent brain surgery.
A former friend and teammate at Sturgeon’s Floyd Central High School highlighted that the gunman suffered many head injuries.
He said Sturgeon always wore a helmet during basketball games because he had suffered so many concussions.
He told the Daily Beast : “The big thing I keep going back to is that in the first year of high school, we played football together in eighth grade, he was out most of the year because he had multiple concussions. Then he had a couple more in high school.
"I’m not saying it’s the cause but I always think back to that… There were times I’d wonder, will this catch up with him? But never in this way. He’s the last person I'd expect would do this.”
“Let’s be clear about what this was,” Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said. “This was an evil act of targeted violence.”
The shooter live streamed the slaughter on Instagram.
“That’s tragic to know that that incident was out there and captured,” she said.
Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, said in a statement that it had “quickly removed the livestream of this tragic incident this morning.”
