Louisville shooting : Gunman to be tested for CTE as victims’ funerals begin today

One of the 12 calls made to 911 reporting the shooting came from a member of staff hiding in a closet near a conference room on the bank’s first floor. The call lasted almost 11 minutes, during which the caller whispered “I can hear gunshots” as gunfire can be heard in the background.

“I’m in a closet hiding,” she says in the call, adding that people have been shot and that she knows who the shooter is, saying “He works with us”.

The woman shouted “help!” on a number of occasions.

“Stay quiet,” the operator told the caller amid the sounds of gunfire. “We’ve got everybody coming, OK?”

The dispatcher said police were en route.

“I know, but how long?” the caller said quietly. “How long will it be before they get here?”

The call stayed on the line with the dispatcher until Sturgeon was killed by police.

One of the wounded employees in the Louisville bank shooting has spoken out, saying that she served as a mentor for gunman Connor Sturgeon and that she didn’t foresee that he may become violent.

Sturgeon shot 13 people during the massacre on Monday at Old National Bank in downtown Louisville, leaving five people dead and eight injured, one of which was bank employee Dana Mitchell.

The gunman was shot and killed by police.

Ms Mitchell told CBS News that she’s on the mend after being shot in the back.

“The bullet went in and out just below the surface,” she told the network. “It was high enough up that it ripped the skin open. It was a wound about 10 inches long. But didn’t hit anything important.”

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Another one of those who called 911 to report the shooting was a woman who was taking part virtually in the bank staff’s morning meeting using Microsoft Teams to participate via a video call.

She worked for a different branch of the bank at Brownsboro Road.

Those who made the calls were not identified by police and some information was edited out but the first call came from a woman who was on the video call.

Screaming and crying during the call, which lasted four minutes, she said that there was an active shooter at the bank’s downtown branch.

“How do you know you have an active shooter on site?” the dispatcher asked.

“I just watched it. I just watched it on a Teams meeting. We were having a board meeting,” she said. “I saw somebody on the floor. We heard multiple shots and people started saying ‘Oh my God,’ and then he came into the board room.”

“This video is still going. Oh my god. ... He was in and out of that room very quickly,” she said.

Bank manager Rebecca Buchheit-Sims told CNN that the bank staff were attending their morning meeting before opening for the day when the shooting took place. She said she was taking part in the meeting virtually via the video call.

She told the network that the shooting “happened very quickly”.

“I witnessed people being murdered,” she said. “I don’t know how else to say that.”

The gunman behind the Louisville bank shooting will be tested posthumously for Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), his father has said.

Connor Sturgeon’s family have said he suffered from “mental health challenges” but showed no warning signs of what he planned to do before he carried out the shooting at the Old National Bank on Monday.

The 25-year-old opened fire with an AR-15-style rifle in a first-floor conference room as executives gathered for their morning meeting – all the while livestreaming the massacre on his Instagram account.

Officers responded to the scene within minutes and exchanged gunfire with the gunman, shooting him dead.

Five victims, all executives at the bank, died in the horror attack while others – including a responding police officer – are fighting for their lives in hospital.

The motive remains unclear but new details continue to emerge about the man behind the attack.

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A member of staff inside the building called 911 to understand what was going on.

“We are on the fourth floor. We are trying to get the status of what’s going on,” the caller said. “We’re tucked under a desk right now.”

The dispatcher asked that the staff stay in place as police cleared the building.

“As far as my understanding, the shooter has been taken into custody. As far as my understanding, the scene is safe at the moment,” the operator added.

One caller said she was down the street from the bank and that a survivor had entered her building, saying that there had been a shooting at the bank.

In a separate call, a man told the authorities that the gunman had fired at least 15 rounds into a room holding more than a dozen people.

“Mass shooting. He shot probably 15 rounds,” he said. “There were probably 14 people in the room. Please get people there fast, please. And ambulances, please.”

A driver outside the building also called in to report the shooting.

“I saw a man with some type of assault rifle walking around in a bulletproof vest,” she told the dispatcher.

She said he was “jogging around like he was trying to get somewhere in a hurry”.

Sturgeon grew up in Indiana and attended Floyd Central High School in Floyds Knobs, where he was a star athlete playing basketball, football and running track.

But he also reportedly suffered many concussions.

On Thursday, Sturgeon’s father confirmed to WLKY that the family will have Sturgeon tested for CTE.

CTE is a brain disease caused in part by repeated traumatic brain injuries, including concussions and non-concussive impacts, according to the Boston University CTE Center.

Symptoms of CTE can appear years after the sufferer is dealt repeated blows to the head and can include mood and behaviour problems including aggression and depression.

Sturgeon’s history of concussions was first revealed by a former classmate who told The Daily Beast that he was injured to the point of wearing a helmet on the basketball court.

“The big thing I keep going back to is that in the first year of high school, we played football together in eighth grade, he was out most of the year because he had multiple concussions,” said the former classmate, who did not want to be named.

“Then he had a couple more in high school.”

The classmate said he wondered if his injuries were linked to Monday’s shooting.

“I’m not saying it’s the cause but I always think back to that… There were times I’d wonder, will this catch up with him? But never in this way,” he said.

“He’s the last person I’d expect would do this.”

In recent years, there has been a greater awareness of a link between athletes who suffer concussions – in particular football players – and CTE.

One especially notable example is that of Aaron Hernandez, the former New England Patriots tight end who was convicted of murder. After his death by suicide, researchers found he had severe CTE.

While it remains unclear if Sturgeon suffered from the condition, his former classmate spoke of his shock at what the 25-year-old went on to do.

“I know everyone always says this about shooters but I truly would have never expected it to be him,” he said.