LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Connor Sturgeon, the 25-year-old employee of Old National Bank who police said shot and killed five people and injured eight others Monday in downtown Louisville, purchased the AR-15 rifle used in the shooting six days earlier at a local gun dealer.

In a news conference Tuesday morning, interim Louisville Metro Police Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel said the gun was bought on April 4. U.S. Rep. Morgan McGarvey, D-Louisville, said Sturgeon called at least one person, telling them he was suicidal and hinting at his plans, and also left a note.

"Our community is changed forever," McGarvey said. 

Old National Bank Shooting

Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg, a Democrat, pleaded with Kentucky's Republican-controlled legislature to make changes to state law to help stop the scourge of gun violence.

"This is happening in America everywhere and will keep happening unless we take meaningful action. ... Doing nothing is not a strategy," Greenberg said.

He asked Kentucky lawmakers to let Louisville implement its own gun policies, decrying a state law requiring guns seized by police to be recirculated to the public via auction. 

The auctions are required under a law passed in 1998 by the Kentucky General Assembly, which directed that seized weapons be sold to federally-licensed firearms dealers if they can't be returned to their legal owners.

"Please give Louisville the autonomy to deal with our unique gun violence epidemic," Greenberg said. "Let us, the people of Louisville, make our own choices about how we reduce gun violence in our city."

During his campaign for mayor last year, Greenberg pledged to alter those weapons so that they couldn't be fired before sending them off for auction. His administration announced in February it would require firing pins to be removed, a move Greenberg said is a first step in keeping those guns from possibly returning to Louisville's streets. 

A Democratic-sponsored bill in the 2023 Kentucky General Assembly that would let local governments destroy confiscated firearms did not get assigned to a committee in the Republican-controlled legislature. 

As a result of the Kentucky law, Greenberg said, the AR-15 used in Monday's shooting will eventually be re-sold.

On the federal front, McGarvey, Kentucky's newest congressman who flew home from Washington in the aftermath of Monday's shooting, called for universal background checks and taking "weapons of war" off the streets.

"We don't have the tools on the books to deal with someone who is an imminent danger to themselves or to others," McGarvey said. "That is not a political issue but it becomes one when Kentucky Republicans would rather ban books and pronouns. ... We are hurting."

Dr. Jason Smith, chief medical officer of UofL Hospital, said he's grown "weary" of the gun violence that plagues Louisville. There were 160 people shot to death in 2022, a slight decline from the year before but still the third straight year with more than 100 homicides, data show. Hundreds of other people were injured by gunfire: 421 in 2022 compared with 631 in 2021.

Smith said his staff at University of Louisville Hospital hardly had to change their operating schedule to deal with victims of a mass shooting given what has become of the city's gun violence problem.

"You can't keep seeing all the people with these horrific injuries coming through the door without doing something to try and help," he said. "I'm a doctor. I don't know what the answers are. But to everyone who helps make policy — both state, city, federal — I would simply ask you to do something. ... Because doing nothing, which is what we've been doing, is not working. Do something, because this is just getting out of hand across our city and across this great nation of ours."

Nine people, including three police officers, were treated for injuries, according to UofL Health. Five have now been treated and released. One of the wounded, identified as 57-year-old Deana Eckert, later died, police said Monday night. Also killed in the shooting were bank executives Tommy Elliott, Josh Barrick, Jim Tutt and Juliana Farmer, police said.

Made with Flourish

Gwinn-Villaroel said officers obtained a search warrant for Sturgeon's residence — which was raided by federal agents Monday afternoon — and recovered items inside. She wouldn't elaborate, citing the ongoing investigation.

"It looks like they’re going around looking to find camera footage," said a man who lived nearby. "They told me that the guy who did the shooting lives just right over there, just a couple of houses down, which is a little frightening."

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