A 23-year-old man shot dead four people on Monday in a bank in the most populous city in the US state of Kentucky, including two friends of the governor, authorities reported, who said the attacker, a former employee of the entity, was also shot dead. The attack occurs just two weeks after the attack at a Nashville primary.
Nine other people were injured and were admitted to a Louisville city medical center after the shooting in the building of Old National Bankreported the Hospital of the University of Louisville.
Two of the injured were police officers, and one of them was in critical condition, the hospital added.
The shooting, which anti-gun violence organizations say is the 15th mass shooting in the United States so far this year, came two weeks after a former student shot dead three children and three adults at a Nashville elementary schoolstate of Tennessee.
Friends of the governor of that state and his wife were also killed in that shootout.
Police officers arrived at the bank while shots were still being fired and exchanged fire with the gunman, Louisville Deputy Police Chief Paul Humphrey said at a news conference.
It was not clear if the shooter committed suicide or if officers shot him, added, reported the CNN news network.
The city’s interim police chief later said the assailant’s name was Connor Sturgeon, 23. Police chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel also identified the other four dead: three men, ages 40, 63 and 64, and a 57-year-old woman.
The Governor of Kentucky, An emotional Andy Beshear said he lost friends in the shooting. “This is awful”he said at the same press conference.
“I have a very close friend who didn’t make it. And I have another close friend who didn’t either. And one who is in the hospital and I hope he makes it through,” stated.
The agents “without a doubt saved lives,” estimated, for his part, the mayor of Louisville, Craig Greenberg, at the press conference.
The mayor, who survived a shooting last year, denounced “a new episode of armed violence.”
The White House said President Joe Biden had been informed of the shooting.
Tens of thousands of people die each year in mass shootings in public places in the United States, an almost unique worldwide phenomenon that is attributed to the free carrying of arms in that country, protected by the Constitution itself.
According to studies, the country has more weapons than inhabitants: one in three adults has at least one weapon.
Source: Ambito
