Four people died and eight others were injured, including two police officers, in a shooting that occurred this Monday morning (04.10.2023) at a bank in the US city of Louisville (Kentucky), the local Police reported. A man, who is the fifth fatality, opened fire inside the branch with an assault rifle, according to witnesses, and was killed by security forces.
“Here’s what we know so far: Calls reported an attacker in action around 8:30 this morning” at a downtown bank, the Old National Bank, and “officers were on the scene within minutes.” explained the police through social networks. When the uniformed men entered, the attacker was still shooting.
“At the moment we don’t know what state they are in” the hospitalized people, said Paul Humphrey, a city police officer, at a press conference. The “lonely” gunman has died, police said, after indicating that he had been “neutralized”. “The population is no longer in danger,” he said. Some survivors took refuge in the vault, a CNN reporter reported.
Weapons abundance
According to initial reports, the attacker appeared to have a “connection” to the bank and was an employee or former employee of the financial institution, Humphrey explained. During the exchange of fire with the assailant, two police officers were injured and are in serious condition. One of them had to be operated on at the university hospital in Louisville.
For his part, the governor of Kentucky, Andy Beshear, appeared before the press visibly moved and said that two of the deceased were his “friends.” He also explained that another of his friends is in the hospital and hopes that he can get ahead. In the same press conference, the mayor of the city, Craig Greenberg, praised the rapid response of the Police to prevent more victims and went so far as to describe them as “heroes”.
The United States pays a heavy price for the spread of firearms on its soil and the ease with which Americans have access to them: one in three adults owns at least one gun and nearly one in two lives in a home where there is a weapon
