LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDKY) — The Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) confirmed six people are dead, including the shooter, and eight others injured after a shooting Monday morning at a downtown bank.
Police said the incident started around 8:30 a.m. at the Old National Bank on East Main Street, and officers were on the scene within three minutes.
They exchanged gunfire with the shooter — later identified as 25-year-old Connor Sturgeon — who died on the scene after being shot by officers, according to LMPD. Sturgeon had been livestreaming the attack, police said.
LMPD identified the victims as:
- James Tutt, 64
- Joshua Barrick, 40
- Juliana Farmer, 45
- Thomas Elliot, 63
- Deana Eckert, 57
According to their LinkedIn pages, Tutt was a market executive, Barrick a senior vice president of commercial real estate banking, Farmer a loan analyst, and Elliot a senior vice president at the bank.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said he lost one of his closest friends — Tommy Elliott — in the shooting.
“Elliot helped me build my law career,” said Gov. Beshear. “He helped me become governor, gave me advice on being a good dad. He’s one of the people I talked to most in the world and very rarely were we talking about my job. He was an incredible friend.”
Louisville’s former Mayor Greg Fischer said he’d known 63-year-old Elliott for 40 years. He likes to tell a story about how they met: Elliott was a young banker and Fischer was a young businessman. They were both ambitious and “wet behind the ears,” Fischer said. Elliott called him up and said he wanted to be his personal banker.
“I reminded him that my net worth was less than $5,000 and thought he was crazy,” Fischer said. “I said, ‘Your prospect list must be getting pretty bad, Tommy, to be calling me.’”
Fischer said that story highlights Elliott’s work ethic and his ability to see things in people they might not see in themselves.
“He got great joy out of helping people and seeing people succeed,” he said.
They became close friends, and when Fischer launched his first bid to be mayor, Elliott signed on to be his campaign finance manager and remained with him the rest of his political career.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Morgan McGarvey, who represents Louisville, knew Elliott for years and said, “It’s unimaginable to me that he’s not here.”
“He enjoyed life,” McGarvey said. “He enjoyed people. He enjoyed being in the mix. He enjoyed trying to get stuff done to move Louisville and Kentucky forward. He was serious about it, but he had fun with it.”
Elliott’s network of friends included Louisville native Lonnie Ali, the wife of the late boxing great Muhammad Ali. She pointed to his sense of humor and his commitment to his community.
“Tommy was such a warm, wonderful, funny, kind guy,” she said. “Just the sweetest person. And it’s just such a huge loss, not just to his friends and family, but to the community. Because that’s what Tommy was about. Tommy was about community.”
“I’m going to miss him so much,” she added.
Fischer said Elliott was a devoted family man. He is survived by his wife, two daughters and two stepdaughters. Fischer said it’s hard for him to imagine the hole that’s been left for them.
Hundreds gathered Monday evening at Holy Trinity Catholic Church, where Joshua Barrick was an active member. The church placed a photo of him with a wide smile on its altar, as well as a second of Barrick with his wife and two young children.
“He was so well known, he made himself known,” said Pastor Shayne Duvall. “This community is mourning. We’re trying to wrap our heads around it.”
Duvall remembered Barrick as a big guy with a bubbly personality who coached basketball for the first and second graders at the parish’s grade school. He described him as “very charismatic, very charming” and said Barrick was among the first who welcomed him when he came to the church less than a year ago.
Barrick had worked for about two decades in banking and previously worked at WesBanco, according to The Courier-Journal. Louisville Business First named him one of its 20 People to Know in Banking in 2020.
James Tutt was a Frankfort native who graduated from the University of Kentucky and worked in banking for over 38 years, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader.
Oldham County Judge-Executive David Voegele told the Courier-Journal that Tutt served on the Oldham-La Grange Development Authority from 2011-2022, including a number of years as its chair.
“He added a tremendous amount of insights as we went about developing our office park in LaGrange,” Voegele said. “He’s a very high quality, well-thought-of individual … It’s just sickening to hear what’s happened.”
Juliana Farmer, a loan officer, was a mother and grandmother, according to the Herald-Leader.
While mourning her friend and the other shooting victims in her hometown, Lonnie Ali lamented that “there is no place on this earth that we are safe as citizens.”
“You always have to be aware of everything going on around you,” said Ali, who is carrying on the humanitarian causes her husband championed. “And it scares me to death — not really so much for me, but for my grandchildren, my children, my friends.”
Eight others, including two police officers, were treated for injuries from the shooting. One of the officers, 26-year-old Nickolas Wilt, graduated from police academy on March 31. He was in critical condition Monday after being shot in the head and having surgery. The police department said on Twitter that Wilt “ran towards the gunfire today to save lives.”
“This is a tragic event,” said Deputy Chief Paul Humphrey. “But it was it was the heroic response of officers that made sure that no more people were more seriously injured than what happened.”
Gov. Beshear ordered flags to half-staff through sunset on Friday in honor of the victims.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
