AP – Police body camera video released on Tuesday showed the chaotic moments when police arrived at the scene of a mass shooting at a bank in downtown Louisville, as the shooter they couldn’t see from the street rained bullets down on them.
The videos, taken from two wounded officers’ lapels, offer a rare perspective of police officers responding to a massacre that killed five and injured eight others on Monday. One, a rookie officer, was shot in the head within minutes of arriving at the scene, as his partner was grazed by a bullet and sought cover while still trying to take down the shooter.
Louisville Metro Police Department Deputy Chief Paul Humphrey walked reporters through edited footage and still photos at a new conference on Tuesday and praised the responding officers for their heroism.
They received the call of a shooting at Old National Bank at 8:38am, and the two officers arrived three minutes later, according to a chronology provided by police. They hadn’t even gotten out of the patrol car when the gunman began firing on them.
“Back up, back up, back up,” one officer shouted as gunshots thundered in the background.
One still image from surveillance video showed the 25-year-old shooter, who worked at the bank, holding a rifle, wearing jeans, a blue button-down shirt and sneakers, surrounded by broken glass inside the building. He had already shot numerous people inside, and police said he set up an ambush position to attack officers as they arrived. The front doors were glass, elevated from the sidewalk, and because of the reflection, the officers could not see the shooter inside.
