A gunman who carried out a mass shooting at a bank in Kentucky was a former star high-school athlete who had suffered a series of concussions.
onnor Sturgeon (23) killed five people and injured eight at the Old National Bank, in Louisville, on Monday.
It emerged that he had suffered numerous concussions while playing American football at high school, and had to wear a helmet for protection when he later took up basketball.
A former classmate told the Daily Beast website: “We played football together in eighth grade. He was out most of the year because he had multiple concussions. Then he had a couple more in high school.”
It is unclear whether Sturgeon had suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy or any other condition brought on by repeated head injuries.
Sturgeon later earned a master’s degree in finance from the University of Alabama and went on to work at the bank in Louisville. He was reportedly about to be fired from his job.
Before the shooting Sturgeon reportedly posted online a quote from a Star Wars film: “I know what I have to do but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it.”
He also reportedly wrote: “They won’t listen to words or protests. See if they hear this.”
Police said he targeted specific people with an AR-15 rifle that he bought legally a week earlier. Victims included a close friend of Kentucky’s governor.
Sturgeon live-streamed the attack on Instagram.
Police arrived as shots were still being fired inside the bank and they killed the gunman. A 26-year-old officer, who was shot in the head, remains in a critical but stable condition. He had graduated just 10 days earlier.
There have been 146 mass shootings in the US so far in 2023, the most at this point in the year since 2016. (© Telegraph Media Group Ltd 2023)
Telegraph Media Group Limited [2023]