The suspect in the killing of four people and injuring nine others at the Old National Bank in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, was a high school star who allegedly suffered so many concussions that he wore a helmet during basketball games.
The gunman was identified as Connor Sturgeon, 23, a bank employee who live streamed his rampage on Instagram before being shot dead by police on Monday.
Sturgeon was an all-around athlete as a freshman at Floyd Central High School in Floyds Knobs, Indiana, where he played basketball, football, and track.
A former classmate told The Daily Beast that Sturgeon was known as “Mr. Floyd Central” because his father was the team’s head coach.
However, a classmate who requested anonymity stated that Sturgeon wore a helmet while playing basketball due to multiple concussions he sustained while playing football.
“In eighth grade, we played football together. “He was out for most of the year due to multiple concussions,” he explained. “Then he had a couple more in high school.”
During his junior year on the Floyd Central High School basketball team, Sturgeon was photographed wearing a helmet during a game in which he scored nearly half of the team’s points.
The classmate couldn’t help but think about Sturgeon’s high school injuries and connect them to other incidents in which athletes who suffered concussions went on to harm themselves or others.
Doctors have made numerous links in recent years between football players and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy [CTE], a degenerative brain disease caused by repeated blows to the head.
According to the Concussion Legacy Foundation, those diagnosed with CTE typically have impaired thinking and memory and are prone to aggression, mood swings, depression, and paranoia.
Aaron Hernandez, the disgraced New England Patriots tight end who was convicted of murder in 2015, was found to have chronic CTE after committing suicide in prison in 2017.
Sturgeon won the 2016 News and Tribune Sports Performance Yearly Award for Boys Track Athlete of the Year during his senior year.
Sturgeon attended the University of Alabama after graduating from high school to study finance, earning his master’s degree in finance in 2020.
Sturgeon worked as a summer intern for the Old National Bank for three years while attending university, eventually joining as a commercial development professional in 2021 and a full-time associate and portfolio banker last year, according to his LinkedIn account.
While his Instagram account, where he filmed the shooting, has been removed, screengrabs shared by local reporters show Sturgeon appearing unsteady in the hours before the shooting.
His alleged final posts — which The Post couldn’t immediately confirm — included meme photos with captions like “I know what I have to do, but I’m not sure if I have the strength to do it,” and “I could burn this whole place down.”
“They won’t listen to words or protests,” he allegedly wrote in his last post. Let’s see if they notice.”
Police are still investigating the motive for the deadly shooting, in which four high-ranking members of the Louisville bank branch were killed.
According to CNN, Sturgeon learned he was about to be fired from the bank and left a note for his parents and a friend explaining his intention to shoot up the bank.
Tommy Elliott, 63, and Joshua Barrick, 40, both senior vice presidents, were killed, as were Jim Tutt, 64, a market executive, and Juliana Farmer, 45, a commercial loan specialist.