Community members attend a vigil at Crescent Hill Presbyterian Church following a mass shooting at Old National Bank in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, US April, 10, 2023/ Image: REUTERS

Kentucky - Emergency calls from the mother of the 25-year-old bank employee who went on a shooting spree at his Kentucky employer on Monday, killing five people and injuring nine more, were revealed on Wednesday. The mother urgently dialled 911 to report her son's intentions.

The calls, including one from a worker who saw the attack while participating in a video conference, were given by the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department hours before hundreds of locals gathered to mourn at a vigil at the city's Muhammad Ali Center.

As Connor Sturgeon, who was working at the Old National Bank's downtown branch at the time of the shooting, was identified by police as the shooter in Louisville, he was a local resident. On Monday, the police killed him.

As the shooting took place, a flurry of calls from terrified bank employees came in on Monday morning. Among them was a call from a lady identifying herself as the suspect's mother to the city's emergency number.

She informed the operator that she had learned via her son's roommate that the man had left a message indicating he had a pistol and was going to the bank. She spoke between gasps.

The unidentified woman, whose name was left out of the audio, remarked, "He's never hurt anyone, he's a really good kid." "We don't even own guns, I don't know where he would have gotten a gun."

According to remarks made by Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg during the vigil, the killing on Monday raised the total number of people killed by gun violence in Louisville in 2023 to 40.

Greenberg declared during the vigil that "we are all in pain right now." "We come together this evening to acknowledge that every violent death is tragic, whether you knew some of these wonderful people who were killed on Monday or not."

According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been 146 mass shootings in the United States so far in 2023, which is the highest up to this time in the year since 2016. A mass shooting, according to the nonprofit organization, occurs when four people are shot or killed, not counting the perpetrator.

Three 9-year-old pupils and three staff members were shot and killed by a former student at a private Christian school in Nashville just two weeks before the atrocity in Louisville. The shooting shocked the Tennessee community and the nation, despite the fact that mass shootings have grown regular in the US.

In a statement made public on Wednesday, the gunman's family claimed they had been "actively addressing" the mental health concerns he had before going on the rampage.

The family claimed that there were "never any warning signs or indications he was capable" of carrying out a mass shooting in the statement that was made available to a Louisville television station.

The message was placed on the station's website after it was provided by the family's lawyer on Tuesday night, according to Fox-affiliated WDRB. The station did not identify the lawyer, and Reuters was unable to independently confirm the claim.

At the vigil on Wednesday, Greenberg and other speakers urged the bitterly divided U.S. government to take decisive action to address the nation's gun violence epidemic, pointing to both individual acts of violence and accidental discharges of firearms as well as mass shootings.