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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
World
Matt Atherton

Louisville shooting: Fifth victim confirmed dead after Connor Sturgeon open fired in bank

A fifth Louisville shooting victim was confirmed by police on Tuesday morning, after a disgruntled ex-bank worker open fired in his old place of work.

Deana Eckert, 57, was the latest person confirmed to have died, Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) confirmed.

Police had previously revealed the names of four others who were fatally wounded as Joshua Barrick, 40, Thomas Elliott, 63, Juliana Farmer, 45, and James Tutt, 64.

Before the latest death, hospital officials said nine people were injured, including three in critical condition.

The shooting was first reported on Monday morning in Louisville, Kentucky, when a former bank employee stormed the building with an AR-15 rifle and open fired.

The gunman - who was later named by police as Connor Sturgeon - live-streamed the entire attack on Instagram.

The gunman was later named by police as Connor Sturgeon (Linkedin)

Police arrived as shots were still being fired inside Old National Bank and killed the shooter in an exchange of gunfire, LMPD Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel said.

The city's mayor, Craig Greenberg, called the attack "an evil act of targeted violence."

The shooting was the 15th mass killing in the US this year, and came just two weeks after a former student killed three children and three adults at a Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee.

Chief Gwinn-Villaroel said: "That's tragic to know that that incident was out there and captured."

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."

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 having surgery, the police chief said. At least three patients had been discharged.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said he lost one of his closest friends in the shooting - Tommy Elliott - in the building not far from the minor league ballpark Louisville Slugger Field and Waterfront Park.

"Tommy Elliott helped me build my law career, helped me become governor, gave me advice on being a good dad," said Beshear.

"He's one of the people I talked to most in the world, and very rarely were we talking about my job. He was an incredible friend."

Also killed in the shooting were Josh Barrick, Jim Tutt and Juliana Farmer, police said.

Police sealed off the home of Connor Sturgeon after the attack (Timothy D Easley/AP/REX/Shutterstock)

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

The investigation in Louisville continued and police were still searching 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 the neighborhood where the suspect lived, about five miles 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. Kami Cooper, who lives in the neighborhood, said she didn't recall ever meeting the suspect but said it's an unnerving feeling to have lived on the same street as someone who could do such a thing.

"I'm almost speechless. You see it on the news but not at home," Cooper said. "It's unbelievable, it could happen here, somebody on my street."

A man who fled the building during the shooting told WHAS-TV that the shooter 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.

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 made sure that no more people were more seriously injured than what happened."

Just a few hours later and blocks away, an unrelated shooting killed one man and wounded a woman outside a community college, police said.

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.

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