MAY 2023 - Blues Vol 39 No. 5

LOUISVILLE Old National

LOUISVILLE Old National Bank Shooting days after graduating from the police academy, leaving him in critical condition. Seven others were injured. “I just swore him in, and his family was there to witness his journey to become a police officer,” Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel, the interim police chief, said of Wilt. The motive for the rampage is unclear. The shooting was live-streamed on Instagram, compounding the horror. The gunman fired the weapon inside the bank for about a minute and then appeared to wait a minute and a half before police arrived, according to a city official. “Good morning,” a bank worker said to the gunman. “You need to get out of here,” the shooter told the woman on the live-stream, which was eventually taken down by Instagram’s parent company Meta. The gunman then tried to shoot her in the back, but the safety appeared to be on and the weapon needed to be loaded, the official said. Once the shooter loaded the weapon properly and took the safety off, he shot the worker, the official said. She was hit in the back of the shoulder and survived. The first 911 call came from a woman who worked at a different branch of Old National Bank. She witnessed the shooting on video. “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.” Rebecca Buchheit-Sims, a manager with Old National Bank, later told CNN she virtually witnessed the shooting on her computer during the Microsoft Teams meeting. “I witnessed people being murdered,” she said. “I don’t know how else to say that.” Another 911 caller whispered. She said she worked at the bank. She was hiding in a closet. Gunshots echo in the background. “I know who it is,” she said. “He works with us.” Someone else called 911. They were on the fourth floor of the downtown building, hiding under a desk. Another caller to police demanded, “Get here now! We need somebody now!” 01:37 - Source: CNN On the morning of his 10th day on the job, Wilt and his training officer, Cory “CJ” Galloway, drove to the riverside Preston Pointe building – which houses the bank on the first floor. It was 8:41 a.m. when their patrol car pulled up outside Old National Bank – on the other side of the street from Louisville Slugger Field, home of the minor-league Louisville Bats. The officers had been dispatched three minutes earlier to a report of shots fired. Gunshots exploded inside the building. “Back up, back up, back up,” one officer shouted. The squad car backed up slightly, according to their body camera video, which was released Tuesday. Some parts of the footage were blurred out. Galloway got a rifle from the trunk. “Cover for me,” he told his partner. The gunman waited in the bank lobby. Officers could not see through the building’s dark glass panes. In a photo taken from surveillance video, the shooter – wearing a blue shirt, jeans and sneakers – is holding a rifle. The floor is strewn with broken glass. Gunshots thundered in the background, according to the video. Wilt was shot in the head as he ran toward the shots, police said. Wilt was seen following Galloway up the outside steps to the bank. The video cut off before he was hit. Galloway, who was also shot, is seen taking fire. He fell, got back up and retreated to a safe position down the steps behind a planter. Officers talk about how they can’t see the gunman and that he’s shooting through the bank windows. “The shooter has an angle on that officer. We need to get up there. I don’t know where he’s at. The glass is blocking him,” Galloway said. Sirens wailed in the background. Galloway took cover and waited for backup. At times, he moved from one side of the concrete planter to another, aiming his rifle at the elevated lobby and trying to get a shot. “He’s shooting straight through these windows right towards the officer,” said Galloway as reinforcements arrived. At 8:44 a.m. Galloway unleashed a hail of bullets into the lobby. The broken windows, shot out by the gunman, enabled him to pinpoint the shooter. “I think he’s down!” Galloway shouted. “Suspect down. Get the officer!” Galloway stepped slowly into the building, through the shattered lobby windows. He aimed his rifle as broken glass crunched under his feet. Galloway then approached the shooter, who was down on the glass-strewn floor next to his rifle. It was 8:45 a.m. Monday – four minutes after the officer responded to another mass shooting in America. 72 The BLUES The BLUES 73