Louisville Metro Police have released graphic body cam video of Monday’s mass shooting at Old National Bank, where five people were killed before police took down the gunman.
The initial video shows scenes from rookie Officer Nickolas Wilt’s body cam. Wilt was among eight people hospitalized in the shooting. Four remained in the hospital as of Tuesday, including Wilt, who is in the critical condition from a gunshot wound to the head.
Wilt graduated from the police academy just a few weeks ago.
In the video, shots can be heard before Wilt even leaves his police cruiser. A moment later Wilt races to the scene.
The video then cuts to the body cam of Officer Cory Galloway, who was also wounded in the incident, though less severely than Wilt. Police say it was Galloway who shot and killed the gunman.
In his body cam video as he heads toward the bank entrance, more shots can be heard, and Galloway pulls back.
“The shooter has an angle on that officer, and we need to get up there,” he says from the sidewalk near the bank entrance.
A few minutes later following more gunfire Galloway shouts, “Suspect down! Get the officer!”
As Galloway heads back toward the bank, an oval-shaped spot on the video is blurred, presumably covering a downed body.
Galloway then tramps across a floor strewn with broken glass into the bank.
Police said about nine minutes transpired from from the beginning of the massacre to the death of the shooter.
The gunman legally purchased the AR-15 rifle he used in his mass murder, according to officials.
On Tuesday Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg and U.S. Rep. Morgan McGarvey, both Democrats, made impassioned pleas for stricter gun regulations on both the state and federal level, including background checks.
Kentucky currently is a permitless carry state. Lawmakers there eliminated concealed carry in 2019. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, gun homicides in Kentucky rose 95% between 2018 and 2021 and gun suicides rose 5%.
The Louisville shooting on Monday was the 145th mass shooting in the U.S. this year, as defined by four or more victims killed or wounded, according to the Gun Violence Archive. It occurred roughly two weeks after three 9-year-olds and three adults were shot and killed at a Christian school in Nashville. In the time period between those two shootings, at least 15 other mass shootings occurred in the U.S.
Since Monday’s incident in Louisville, the U.S. has endured at least one more mass shooting. Three people were injured and one person was killed outside a funeral home Tuesday in Washington DC.
