(Reuters) – Louisville will hold a vigil on Wednesday for those who were killed and wounded in this week’s shooting at a downtown bank by an employee who his family said suffered from mental health issues they had been “actively addressing” before his rampage.
In a statement released to a TV station in the Kentucky city, the family said there were “never any warning signs or indications he was capable” of carrying out a mass shooting.
The station, Fox-affiliated WDRB, provided the statement on its website after receiving it from an attorney for the family on Tuesday evening. Reuters could not independently verify the statement, and the station did not provide the lawyer’s name.
Monday’s shooting brought the number of people killed by gun violence in Louisville to 40 in 2023 so far, Mayor Craig Greenberg said at a news conference on Tuesday, where he joined a chorus of regional leaders calling for tighter gun control measures.
Greenberg will host Wednesday evening’s vigil at the city’s Muhammad Ali Center, according to the mayor’s social media pages.
About two weeks earlier, a former student at a private Christian school in Nashville shot and killed three 9-year-olds and three staff members. While mass shootings have become commonplace in the U.S., the shooting stunned the Tennessee city and the country.
There have been 146 mass shootings in the United States so far in 2023, the most at this point in the year since 2016, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The nonprofit group defines a mass shooting as four or more shot or killed, not including the shooter.
Police identified the shooter in Louisville as Connor Sturgeon, who was employed at the Old National Bank’s downtown branch at the time of the shooting.
“No words can express our sorrow, anguish, and horror at the unthinkable harm our son Connor inflicted on innocent people, their families, and the entire Louisville community,” his family said in the statement to WDRB.
They added that they had many unanswered questions, and would continue to cooperate fully with law enforcement to help everyone understand why and how the shooting happened.
(Reporting by Julia Harte; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
