The gunman who unleashed a terrifying barrage of semi-automatic rifle fire at a Louisville bank office on Monday had “challenges” with his mental health but seemed perfectly normal the day before the senseless massacre that killed five of his colleagues and injured nine others, according to a family spokesman.
Connor Sturgeon, 23, battled depression and anxiety but a mass shooting by the syndications associate and portfolio banker “was nowhere on the grid,” Pete Palmer, a lawyer and close friend of Sturgeon’s father, Todd, told The Daily Beast on Wednesday.
Before heading to work at Old National Bank with an AR-15 he had purchased legally a week earlier, Sturgeon texted his parents a message saying that he loved them, Palmer said. Around the same time, Sturgeon’s roommate, sales rep Dallas Whelan, called Sturgeon’s mother to say her son had left a disturbing note behind. Sturgeon’s mom then called 911, desperate to stop what she apparently realized was about to happen. (Whelan did not respond to interview requests by The Daily Beast.)
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“He's never hurt anyone, he's a really good kid...We don’t even own guns,” Lisa Sturgeon told the 911 operator. “I don't know where he would have gotten a gun.”
Two police officers can be seen in body cam video advancing upon Connor Sturgeon lying on the ground at Old National Bank on Monday.
Louisville Metro Police Department/Handout via ReutersPalmer said on Wednesday that he doesn’t know what the note said, but that “it was something about suicide and referenced something [happening] at the bank.”
“I do know, having spoken to the roommate very, very briefly, he had no idea, either,” Palmer said. “They had had a very typical day the day before, nothing unusual. I think in these situations, people look retrospectively, ‘Did I miss a word, did I miss a message, did I miss a cry for help?’ And they’ve done all that, and come up with nothing that was amiss.”
Palmer confirmed on Wednesday that Sturgeon indeed suffered multiple concussions playing football in high school, forcing him to wear a protective helmet even while participating in non-contact sports such as basketball. The blows to Sturgeon’s head “took him out of action for days and weeks and months,” Palmer said, which some believe may have led to later issues.
The scene where the shooting took place in downtown Louisville.
LEANDRO LOZADA/AFP via Getty“There are questions from the family whether CTE or something neurological might have contributed,” Palmer said. “They don’t know. It’s being examined by medical professionals, as well. And that’s all the information they really have right now.”
Palmer emphasized that he is helping the family deal with the media, and “also happens to be a lawyer.”
“There’s not a narrative in which I want it to seem the family has ‘lawyered up,’” he said, noting, “They’re not gun people, they’re not agenda people.”
The bloodshed began at around 8:38 a.m. on Monday, as the bank branch prepared to open for the week. Louisville Police Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel said Sturgeon livestreamed the attack, which was quickly taken down. According to an unnamed city official who spoke to CNN, a coworker could be seen in the footage greeting Sturgeon as he arrived.
“You need to get out of here,” Sturgeon reportedly told the woman, before aiming his weapon at her and pulling the trigger. But the rifle was unloaded and the safety was on, so nothing happened.After undoing the safety and loading the gun, Sturgeon shot the woman in the back. (It is unclear whether or not she survived.)
The first person to call 911 was a bank employee at a different Old National branch, who had watched her co-workers being gunned down as they met virtually via Microsoft Teams.
“Oh my God, oh my God, there’s an active shooter there,” she told the operator.
“I see somebody on the floor,” the woman said. “We heard multiple shots and everybody started saying, ‘Oh my God.’”
Three police officers were also injured during the deadly incident. One, Officer Nickolas Wilt, had only been on the job for 11 days when he was shot in the head. In an emailed statement, Louisville Metro PD spokeswoman Angela Ingram said he is hospitalized and “fighting for his life.”
A former friend of Sturgeon’s from Floyd Central High School in Floyds Knob, Indiana, previously told The Daily Beast that Sturgeon was smart and popular during his school days but in a 2018 essay written while at the University of Alabama, Sturgeon wrote that he struggled with his self-esteem and with making friends.
