Former classmate of Louisville shooting suspect says “there were no red flags or indication this could happen”
Police at the scene of a shooting in downtown Louisville, Monday, April 10, 2023. (Credit: Jeffrey Dean/Reuters)
23-year-old Connor Sturgeon, identified as the shooter in Monday’s Louisville mass shooting, had worked for more than a year at the bank where he shot 13 people and killed at least four others.
Sturgeon wrote on her LinkedIn page that she interned for three consecutive summers at Old National Bank in Louisville, from 2018-2020, before joining as a business development specialist in June 2021. 2022, according to the profile.
Sturgeon graduated from the University of Alabama in December 2020, a company spokesperson said. He participated in an accelerated master’s program and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in finance at the same time, said spokesman Shane Torrill.
Previously, Sturgeon played basketball and ran track for his high school in suburban Louisville, and was named a 2015 National Merit Scholarship semifinalist, according to local news reports.
A former classmate of Sturgeon’s at his high school, who knew him and his family well, said he never saw any red flags that this might be happening.
“It’s a complete shock. He’s a good boy from a good family,” said the classmate, who asked not to be named and said she hasn’t spoken to Sturgeon in recent years. “I can’t tell you how little it means. I couldn’t believe it.
In a 2018 college essay published on the CourseHero website, Connor Sturgeon, identified as a University of Alabama student, wrote that he had trouble adjusting to school.
“My self-esteem has been an issue for me for a long time,” the essay said. “As a late bloomer in middle and high school, I found it somewhat difficult to fit in, which has given me a somewhat negative self-image that persists to this day. Making friends has never been easy, so I have more experience than personal trading.”
In college he “began to mature socially and began to see improvement in this area,” the author wrote. And he hoped to become “more self-aware and begin to become a ‘better’ person”.
Sturgeon’s father, Todd Sturgeon, was the head coach of the University of Indianapolis men’s basketball team for 10 years, then a basketball coach, and taught U.S. history at his son’s high school, according to news reports and your LinkedIn profile. A 2007 story published by Todd Sturgeon’s alma mater, DePauw University, cited an Indianapolis Star article about his retirement from the University of Indianapolis that year, in which he said seeing his son Connor inspired him to leave the team.
“Todd Sturgeon said he recently watched his son Connor at basketball camp and it dawned on him: Maybe he should be spending more time with his own kids than anyone else,” the article said.
