Connor Sturgeon Louisville shooter bought AR-15 rifle legally less than a week before mass shooting at Old National Bank. Lived with roommate, Dallas Whalen, with neighbors saying both were quiet and unassuming.
A Louisville, Kentucky banker who fatally gunned down five people at his previous place of employment had only bought the murder weapon, an AR-15 assault rifle days prior to Monday’s bloodbath that left 6 dead (including the gunman) and nine injured.
During a Tuesday press meeting, Louisville Metro Police Department Interim Chief Jackie Gwinn-Villaroel said Connor Sturgeon, purchased the murder weapon legally from an arms dealer in Louisville on April 4, six days before Monday’s mass shooting.
‘We do know this was targeted. He knew those individuals, of course, because he worked there,’ Gwinn-Villaroel said, but didn’t give an indication of a motive behind the shooting.
Officers’ body camera video will be released Tuesday afternoon, the chief said.
Gwinn-Villaroel praised her officers’ response as they ‘unflinchingly’ engaged the shooter at Old National Bank and stopped him from killing more people.
Bodycam police video shows Louisville gunman waiting for cops
Roommate of Louisville shooter had no idea Connor Sturgeon was plotting a massacre https://t.co/StNVTF0Vwu pic.twitter.com/o4t6VWhakS
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) April 11, 2023
Roommate insists he had no knowledge of gun purchase or mass shooting plot
Sturgeon, 23, according to the dailymail lived with his roommate, Dallas Whalen, 24, a mere 15 minutes from the Old National Bank in downtown Louisville where the blood letting took place.
At approximately 8.30am, Monday morning, Sturgeon who had moments earlier had posted on Instagram that he was going to wreak havoc at his place of work, along with sending another friend a suicide note, barged into his former place of employment.
Sturgeon was killed by responding police who arrived at the bank within 3 minutes of gun violence erupting on the first floor at a conference room, the gunman had ambushed his former colleagues. It is there that Sturgeon proceeded to live-stream the attack on his Instagram account.
Sturgeon had been recently fired by Old National Bank, or was about to be fired. It remained unclear what led to the banker’s dismissal.
Whalen, according to his lawyer has maintained no knowledge of any plot that Sturgeon had hatched in the days ahead, nor of the recent weapons purchase. Whelan is a buddy of Sturgeon from their days when they both studied at the University of Alabama.
‘It was as unknown and surprising to Dallas as everybody,’ Whalen’s lawyer told the dailymail.
The lawyer said that just minutes before he opened fire, Sturgeon sent his family a simple ‘I love you’ text message.
I’m on scene outside Louisville Shooter Connor Sturgeon’s home about 15 mins from the bank.
According to a neighbor, the shooter and his roommate “seemed normal,” but that’s increasingly difficult to believe.
I’m building a profile of the shooter and his family. Stay tuned. pic.twitter.com/F8uBDfntps
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) April 10, 2023
‘Everything seemed normal’
Sturgeon’s neighbor, Michael McCoy, 45, told the nypost that the bank worker’s roommate called the police and reported finding a letter from him.
‘[The roommate] seemed like he was tripping, like he couldn’t believe any of this,’ McCoy told the nypost. ‘They found a letter and a note he wrote and reported it to the police.’
According to a neighbor, the shooter and his roommate ‘seemed normal’.
Sturgeon and his friend according to neighbors had been living in a modest two-bedroom house for about a year. Neighbors described the shooter as quiet but friendly, The Daily Beast reported.
One neighbor told the outlet that Sturgeon and Whalen were always polite and would invite her family over to their home when his friends would gather in the backyard, sometimes playing beer pong.
Neighbors said the pair were unassuming and did not cause problems.
‘Can’t say nothing really bad about the guy,’
‘Can’t say nothing really bad about the guy,’ said one neighbor, Kera Allgeier.
Adding, ‘Very quiet, soft-spoken. They invited us over a couple of times for cookouts during summer, you know, very friendly. I just don’t understand.’
Allgeier said the 25-year-old gunman had a ‘good work ethic’ and cared about his job.
‘He wasn’t the type not to go to work. He took pride in his job. I feel like he took pride in his work. That’s the way I see him as,’ she said, adding that compared to his more talkative roommate, Sturgeon was ‘the quiet one.’
‘Connor was more square,’ Allgeier said.
Allgeier’s spouse said Sturgeon ‘seemed like a real normal dude – every day he’d wave to me’.
Adding, ‘And he would go his way, and I would go mine.
‘Quiet guy. You’d see him and his girlfriend carrying groceries into the house, just seemed like a regular dude.’
Officers were seen entering the home on Monday and leaving with what appeared to be a computer, and boxes of material as questions remain how a future master of the universe and star athlete ended up becoming a mass killer.
