Kentucky Governor: I Lost Two Close Friends in Shooting

Another friend was injured in shooting at Louisville bank, Beshear says
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 10, 2023 1:03 PM CDT
Governor Says He Lost Close Friends in Mass Shooting
A Louisville Metro Police crime scene technician photographs bullet holes in the glass of the Old National Bank building in Louisville, Ky., Monday, April 10, 2023.   (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)

The mass shooting at a Louisville bank Monday hit very close to home for Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear. The governor said he lost two close friends in the shooting and another was injured, NBC reports. "This is awful," Beshear said at a press conference. “I have a very close friend that didn’t make it tonight. And I have another close friend who did not either, and one who’s at the hospital but I hope is going to make it through." At least five people—including the shooter—were killed in the Old National Bank shooting and eight others were injured. The shooter is believed to have been a former bank employee.

Beshear said his 2015 campaign for state attorney general was run out of the building and he knows it well. "That's my bank," he said, per Fox News. The governor said one of the two police officers wounded in the shooting is undergoing surgery. "There are a lot of people that are hurting today, and if we have a place to focus our energy, I hope that it is to surround them with the love and the compassion that we have been so good at showing one another," he said.

Other political leaders, including Kentucky Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, said they were shocked and saddened by the shooting, the Lexington Herald-Leader reports. "This is happening around the country in a city daily," tweeted state Rep. Keturrah Herron. "Today was our turn in Louisville, KY. As we hold our community tighter there must me outrage and anger. We live in a war zone and we shouldn’t have to." (More Louisville stories.)

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