Louisville, Kentucky shooting: 4 dead, 9 injured

A mass shooting at a bank in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, on Monday morning, left four people dead and left nine others including two cops injured, police said.

The shooter was a current or former employee of the bank, Paul Humphrey, a Louisville Metro Police Department deputy chief, told reporters. The injured people were rushed to the University of Louisville hospital.

One of the police officers was in critical condition, police said.

On Twitter, Louisville police, which had initially warned people that an "active aggressor" was on the loose and urged the public to stay away from the area, said that the suspect has been neutralised.

"There is no longer an active aggressor threat. The suspected shooter has been neutralized," Louisville police tweeted.

There were shots exchanged between the shooter and police during the incident, CNN reported citing sources. Police said they responded within minutes to reports of an attacker at about 8:30 a.m. (1230 GMT) at an Old National Bank branch near Slugger Field baseball stadium in the city's downtown.

The man was armed with an "AR-15-style" semiautomatic rifle, CNN reported, citing an unnamed federal law enforcement official.

"We will come together as a community to work to prevent these horrific acts of gun violence from continuing here and around the state," Craig Greenberg, mayor of the city of 625,000, told reporters at a briefing, according to a report in Reuters.

Located along Kentucky's border with Indiana, the Louisville metro area has a population of about 630,000 people as of the 2020 Census, CNN reported.

The 300 block of East Main Street is bordered to the east by the minor league stadium Louisville Slugger Field and includes a bank, dentist's office, a furniture store and the Louisville Ballet.

However, the incident is being described a case of workplace violence, perpetrated by an employee who struggled with mental health issues, a federal law enforcement told NBC News.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said that he knew some of the victims.

"I have a very close friend that didn't make it today," Beshear said, "and one who's at the hospital that I hope is going to make it through."

Mass shootings have become recurrent in the United States. In 2023, the country has witnessed 146 mass shootings.