Terrifying moment gunshots break out in downtown Louisville in bank attack that left five dead 

Terrifying footage captured the moment shots rang out across a busy Louisville street as a mass shooter carried out an attack at a downtown bank.

Video taken by a bystander outside the Old National Bank on Monday morning showed heavily armed police officers scrambling to move civilians from the area as a series of deafening gunshots erupted from the bank.

Five people including the gunman are dead, and at least eight people including a police officer are said to be in critical condition. Authorities confirmed the shooter was a former or current employee, but their motive remains unclear. It is also unclear whether they shooter died by officers’ gunfire or from a self-inflicted wound.

As sirens blared and rush hour traffic came to a standstill, officers could be seen trying to move civilians out of danger while shouting ‘Active shooter at the bank! Get out of your car! Active shooter at the bank!’

Gunfire continued to sound, then a police officer clad in body armor could be seen pulling a rifle out of the trunk of his car before charging into the fray.

People are pictured embracing following the mass shooting at the Old National Bank

One bank employee told WHAS that they saw a man with a ‘long assault rifle’ fire multiple shots near the conference room.

‘He just started firing,’ the unnamed employee said. ‘I didn’t see his face. We were in the conference room.

‘Whoever was next to me got shot, their blood’s on me,’ he added.

Another witness said they heard multiple gunshots as well as breaking glass coming from the bank Monday morning.

‘I had just dropped my son off at work on River Road,’ an unnamed witness told WDRB. ‘I was at the stop light, and the first thing that I saw — there was a guy across the street of the intersection and he was lying down at the entrance to a hotel.’

At first, she said, she thought the man was just out for a jog — but then she noticed he was on the steps and not the sidewalk.

That is when she said she heard gunfire, with video from the scene showing at least three shots were fired.

‘As I was siting at that intersection, gunfire erupted, like, right over my head,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know if it was going at the bank or out of the bank, I took off.’

‘When I turned, I saw that one of the windows in the bank had been blown out.’

She then said she saw police vehicles pull up to the area.

‘They were coming from everywhere,’ she said. ‘The police were coming out of their cars with black rifles.’

‘I just ducked in my car and waited there.’

An officer could be seen drawing a heavy rifle from his car then heading towards the gunfire

Authorities are now encouraging the public to stay away from the 300 block of East Main Street in the downtown area of the city — located just hours from Nashville, where a gunman recently opened fire at a Christian school and killed six people. 

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said on Monday he has two ‘close friends’ among the five people who died in a shooting outside the Old National Bank in Louisville.

‘I have a close friend that didn’t make it,’ he said between tears. ‘And I have another that didn’t either.’

A third, he said, was among at least eight people critically injured when a shooter — believed to be a ‘disgruntled employee’ — opened fire at around 8.30am on Monday, when the bank was first opening and employees were attending a morning conference.

The governor said he ran his campaign for attorney general out of the building, where bank employees said they tried to hide inside a vault as gunfire erupted Monday morning.

Louisville Metro police said they arrived on the scene within three minutes of the gunman opening fire, and found him still spraying bullets when they arrived.