Emergency calls depict chaos during Kentucky bank shooting
The audio release came hours before hundreds of people gathered at the Muhammad Ali Center in downtown Louisville to remember the victims.
Frantic calls from witnesses reporting a mass shooting at a Louisville bank were released by US police — including from the shooter’s mother telling a 911 operator that her son “currently has a gun.”
Between shaky breaths, she told the operator that she had heard from her son’s roommate that he had left a note saying he had a gun and was on his way to the bank.
“I need your help. He’s never hurt anyone, he’s a good boy,” the woman said.
It turned out that at the time of her call, the shooter was already at the bank on Monday. The 911 call center informed the woman that other calls were coming in about the shooting.
According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been 146 mass shootings so far in the United States in 2023, the highest number at this point in the year since 2016. The nonprofit defines a mass shooting as four or more people shot or killed , not including the shooter.
‘Situation ongoing’
The first call that came in was from a woman on a video call in the bank. She screams and cries throughout the four minute conversation, saying there is an active shooter in the bank’s downtown branch.
“I just watched it in a Teams meeting,” she says. “We had a board meeting… We heard multiple shots and everyone started saying, ‘Oh my God’ and then he came into the board room.”
Bank employee Connor Sturgeon, 25, used an AR-15 assault rifle in the attack on Old National Bank, where he killed five colleagues while livestreaming before police shot him dead.
Eight others were injured, including a police officer who was shot in the head and is in critical condition in hospital.
The woman who identifies herself as Sturgeon’s mother asks during the call if she can go to the bank, but the dispatcher tells her not to because “there’s a situation going on down there” and “it’s dangerous”.
“You’ve had calls from other people, so he’s here already?” asks the mother with a shock in her voice.
“Please do something”
The audio release came hours before hundreds of people gathered Wednesday at the Muhammad Ali Center in downtown Louisville to remember the victims.
Speakers at the vigil called for action by the deeply divided US government to end the country’s crisis of gun violence.
Dr. Muhammad Babar, a University of Louisville hospital physician who treated victims including injured police officer Nickolas Wilt, pleaded with listeners and politicians to come together to address the issue.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re a Republican or a Democrat, whether you live in urban areas or rural areas, whether you own a gun or not,” he yelled in a voice choked with emotion. “Please do something.”
Sturgeon’s parents said in a statement that their son had mental health issues that were being addressed, but “there were never any warning signs or indications that he was capable of this shocking act.”
They said they are mourning the victims and the loss of their son, and are working with police to understand what happened.
The shooting comes just two weeks after a former student killed three children and three adults at a Christian elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee, 160 miles south of Louisville.