Man Shoots Dead Four People At Bank In Louisville, Kentucky

A man shot dead four people and wounded nine others in an attack on Monday at a bank in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, city officials said. The shooter was fatally shot at the scene, the city's police department said, but it was unclear whether from police gunfire or a self-inflicted wound.

The shooter was a current or former employee of the bank, Paul Humphrey, a Louisville Metro Police Department deputy chief, told reporters.

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. Officers fired at the shooter, police said.

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

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, on the verge of tears, said during a news briefing that he knew some of the victims.

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

Nine people wounded in the attack were treated at the University of Louisville hospital, a hospital spokesperson said, including two police officers. One of the police officers was in critical condition, police said.

"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.

Mass shootings have become recurrent in the United States. So far this year, the nation has experienced 146 mass shootings -- using the definition of four or more shot or killed, not including the shooter -- according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit group.

In one of the most recent high-profile incidents, three 9-year-old students and three staff members were killed by a former student at a school in Nashville, Tennessee, on March 27.

In response to the Louisville attack, President Joe Biden once again repeated his wish for Congress to pass legislation that required safe storage of firearms, background checks for all gun sales and elimination of gun manufacturers' immunity from liability.

"How many more Americans must die before Republicans in Congress will act to protect our communities," Biden, a Democrat, said in the statement.

In a separate incident, a man was killed and a woman injured in a shooting outside a community college in Louisville hours after the bank attack, local CBS TV affiliate WLKY News reported, citing police.

Police said there were multiple suspects in the shooting at Jefferson Community and Technical College, about two miles (3.2 km) from the bank, who fled the scene and remained at large.