Louisville police body cam video shows 7 minutes of Connor Sturgeon’s deadly rampage
Louisville police on Tuesday released nine minutes of body cam footage showing officers being shot at by University of Alabama graduate Connor Sturgeon seconds after they arrived on the scene of Monday’s bank shooting.
The shooting left five people dead and an officer clinging to life.
After Sturgeon, an Old National Bank employee, shot the victims inside the bank, he headed to the lobby to set up an ambush, said Louisville Police Deputy Chief Paul Humphrey at a news conference Tuesday where the department released the footage.
Warning: This video contains graphic images and language.
Surveillance video from inside the bank showed a man police said was Sturgeon walking in the lobby with a long gun, shattered glass by his feet.
“It’s easy to tell an officer that you have to run towards gunfire. It’s another thing to actually do it. Everybody reacts in different ways to gunfire. We have to train officers to go toward danger,” said Humphrey before telling reporters that the footage was going to show Officer Nickolas Wilt being shot.
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“You will see that he never hesitates, even after getting shot at,” Humphrey said of Wilt, who completed his police training only 11 days ago.
Wilt was still in critical but stable condition Tuesday after being shot in the head, University of Louisville Hospital Chief Medical Officer Jason Smith told The Associated Press.
“This young man went back in to the line of fire in order to protect others.”
It took only seven minutes from the time officers were dispatched to the bank at 8:38 a.m. Monday Eastern time until Sturgeon was confirmed shot.
Officers arrived on scene at 8:41 a.m. Monday Eastern time, Humphrey said, and they immediately began taking fire from Sturgeon.
“He lied in wait for officers to respond, and as soon as he saw them he shot at them,” the deputy chief said.
The body cam footage from Wilt and Officer Cory Galloway, Wilt’s training officer, show the pair backing up their patrol vehicle after taking a barrage of bullets.
Galloway then gets his patrol rifle out of the vehicle and moves toward where the shots were fired. Wilt is then shot.
Galloway then moves across the lobby area before he is shot. The training officer, who sustained a minor injury, then falls down and takes cover by a planter box on the side of the building.
While wounded, Galloway tries to assess the shooter as other officers tend to Wilt when Sturgeon then fires at those officers in an attempt to kill them, Humphrey said.
Galloway then shoots and kills the suspect.
Humphrey commended the actions taken by the officers, pointing out that no other civilians were shot once police arrived on the scene.
“I’d love to have either of those officers ride with me any day,” he said.