(ReclaimingAmerica.net) – A gunman suspected of murdering five and wounding eight people in a mass shooting in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, has been identified as a former star student-athlete with multiple concussions.
The suspect, 25-year-old Connor Sturgeon, went on a shooting spree at the Old National Bank in downtown Louisville on Monday morning. He was shot dead by police.
Sturgeon, who live-streamed his attack on Instagram, was a bank employee who had recently learned he would be fired, CNN reports, as cited by The New York Post.
The same report reveals that the shooter left a note for his parents and a friend about his plan to shoot up the bank.
According to former classmates, Sturgeon had so many concussions playing sports in middle school and high school that he had to wear a helmet during basketball games.
As a Floyd Central High School freshman in Floyds Knobs, Indiana, he played football and basketball and ran track.
His father was the basketball team’s head coach, and Sturgeon was called “Mr. Floyd Central,” a former classmate revealed to The Daily Beast.
“We played football together in eighth grade. He was out most of the year because he had multiple concussions. Then he had a couple more in high school,” said the classmate who asked to remain anonymous.
The report notes that Sturgeon is seen wearing a helmet in a photo from his junior year with the Floyd Central High School basketball team. In that particular game, he scored nearly half the team’s points.
The classmate added he recalled Sturgeon’s high school injuries, which led him to think of other cases in which athletes with concussions harm themselves or others.
Medical research in recent years has found “numerous links between football players and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).” CTE is a degenerative brain disease stemming from repeated blows to the head.
According to the Concussion Legacy Foundation, a nonprofit, patients with CTE tend to be prone to “aggression, mood swings, depression, and paranoia.”
A case in hand is that of disgraced New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez. Hernandez killed himself in prison in 2017 after being convicted of murder in 2015. After his death, he was found to have suffered from chronic CTE.
After graduating high school, Louisville shooter Connor Sturgeon earned a master’s degree in finance from the University of Alabama.
He interned at the Old National Bank for three consecutive summers during his university studies. He then joined as a commercial development professional in 2021 and became a portfolio banker in 2022.
Some of Sturgeon’s final Instagram posts were meme photos with captions that could be linked to the attack.
“I know what I have to do but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it,” he wrote in one post.
“I could burn this whole place down,” read another.
“They won’t listen to words or protests. Let’s see if they hear this,” Sturgeon allegedly wrote in his last post.
What is your opinion? Do you think multiple concussions could lead to violent behavior? Share your view by emailing [email protected]. Thank you.
