A vigil for the victims of Monday's mass shooting at a bank in Louisville, Kentucky, is expected to draw demonstrations from gun control advocates as the city reels from the deadly incident.
The vigil, which will take place at 5 p.m. ET on Wednesday at the Muhammad Ali Center on the south bank of the Ohio River, was organized by the city's mayor, Craig Greenberg.
It comes two days after Connor Sturgeon, a 25-year-old employee of the Old National Bank, entered the workplace with a rifle and proceeded to kill five people and injure eight others. The most recent mass shooting of 2023, it bookends the first 100 days of the year, which have seen the most incidents of its kind in the period since 2009.
While gun control groups have renewed calls for tighter restrictions on firearms in the wake of the shooting—which came just weeks after a school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee—gun rights advocates have suggested such restrictions would leave victims of such attacks without a defense.
Wednesday's vigil was announced by Greenberg following the release of police body camera footage showing officers attending the scene and fatally shooting Sturgeon. It also showed the moment rookie police officer Nickolas Wilt was shot in the head. He remains in a critical condition.
The Democrat mayor told reporters on Tuesday that the vigil would "acknowledge the wounds, physical and emotional, that gun violence leaves behind."
"It will be an interfaith opportunity for our entire community to come together—to grieve, to heal, to begin to move forward," he added.
The Kentucky chapter of Moms Demand Action described the vigil as one of its events, and asked supporters to sign up to attend the event. Newsweek contacted the group via email for further comment on Wednesday.
Newsweek also reached out to several other gun control advocacy groups to ask whether they will be attending the vigil.
Police said that Sturgeon had legally purchased the rifle he used in the mass shooting six days before the incident, from a local gun dealership. According to Everytown, a gun safety organization, Kentucky has some of the weakest gun laws in America and the 14th-highest rate of gun-related deaths among U.S. states.
"Our hearts break for the Louisville community, the first responders, and everyone else impacted by yet another senseless act of gun violence in America," Connie Coartney, a volunteer with the Kentucky chapter of Moms Demand Action, said in a statement on Monday.
"While we grieve for those killed or wounded today, we know that thoughts and prayers aren't enough. We will continue to demand our lawmakers meet this tragic moment with the urgency and action it requires," she added.
In neighboring Tennessee on Tuesday, Republican Governor Bill Lee signed an executive order tightening the state's gun laws in the wake of a school shooting in late March. After two Democratic state lawmakers were expelled from the House chamber for protesting in favor of stricter gun control, Lee implored legislators to work together on solutions.
CORRECTION 04/12/23 12:46 p.m. ET: We wrongly stated Moms Demand Action had been involved in organizing Wednesday's vigil. It was organized solely by Louisville's mayor, Craig Greenberg.
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Aleks Phillips is a Newsweek U.S. News Reporter based in London. His focus is on U.S. politics and the environment. ... Read more
