A BANK worker armed with a rifle opened fire at his workplace in the US city of Louisville on Monday, killing five people while livestreaming the attack on Instagram.

One of those killed was reportedly a close friend of Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear.

Police arrived as shots were still being fired inside the branch of Old National Bank and killed gunman Connor Sturgeon in an exchange of gunfire, said Louisville Metro Police Department chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel. 

A man who fled the building during the shooting told local media that the gunman had opened fire with a long rifle in a conference room at the back of the building’s first floor.

“Whoever was next to me got shot — blood is on me from it,” he said, pointing to his shirt, adding that he had fled to a break room and shut the door.

Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg called the attack “an evil act of targeted violence.”

After the gunman livestreamed the attack on social media, Meta, the firm that owns Facebook and Instagram, said that it had quickly removed the footage.

The shooting was the 15th mass killing in the United States this year, making the first 100 days of 2023 the bloodiest since the same period of 2009, when 16 such killings took place.