'Doesn't make sense.' Louisville grieves as Old National Bank goes from crime scene to memorial

The pavement outside of Old National Bank transformed into a somber memorial the day after a deadly mass shooting that killed five people.

But for many, it was part of their normal commute to work. Or even an unsuspected stop during a vacation.

Until Monday at 8:30 a.m., 333 E. Main St. in downtown Louisville was a bank that largely went unnoticed as tourists wandered between attractions and workers went about their days. But when a shooter opened fire, killing five people and wounding many others, first it became a crime scene. By the time the sun rose Tuesday morning, the glass that had been blown out from the front windows had been replaced by boards, the bloodstains on the sidewalks had faded and the roads had reopened.

I spent more than six hours outside Old National Bank the day after the mass shooting, and in an unexpected way, I watched a fragment of Louisville slip back into normalcy on the ground where everything had changed a day before.

You could track this flicker in the Kentucky Bourbon Trail Maps that stuck out of back pockets on tourists, and in the beads of sweat that rolled down joggers' faces, but at the same time, routine also felt impossible. That was evident in small sobs and quiet prayers that were just barely audible over the noise of the traffic, and it was clear in the number of people who came to pay their respects.

When USA Today Network photographer Cara Owsley and I arrived outside Old National Bank just after 10:30 a.m., only a few bouquets rested on the steps, and a single security guard in a suit paced the space in front of the doors. Five bunches of small white roses had clearly been delivered together, and the person had left a note “sending prayers” to the families and thanking Louisville Metro Police for stepping in as quickly as they did.

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Moments later, I found Kett Ketterer, who works nearby at KD & Company wholesale flower company, unloading more than a dozen potted Easter lilies.

He was still overwhelmed by the killings the day before. He didn't know anyone who worked in the building, but he has clients who did. Louisville is a small town in that way. Everybody seems to know somebody who is hurting.

"I think everybody's just in shock, and you have to have some way to express yourself in your grief," he said. "And I'm trying to understand, it just doesn't make sense."

After Ketterer left, I watched a completely different delivery go unfulfilled.

An Amazon driver unloaded a stack of boxes onto a dolly and rolled them up to the caution tape as though it was any other Tuesday. He chatted briefly with the guard and then hauled them all back to the truck.

Each of those orders would have been made days or maybe even hours before the gunman fired.

"I bet they don’t realize the address until they get here," Cara told me.

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I stared up at the building. She was probably right. I'd never heard of 333 E. Main St. until Monday morning. There was no reason to believe anyone else had either.

Even so, Old National Bank drew quite a crowd Tuesday. People passing by in cars had their heads on a swivel, and even as they moved away, their eyes stayed on the growing pile of flowers and the boarded-up windows.

I spotted a man hanging outside the passenger window snapping pictures on his phone as he rode by, and I wondered if this is how we grieve in the United States now.

Arguably paying respects has been condensed into Instagram posts and words on social media pleading for change.

Throughout the afternoon I’d see this same empty photo ritual more than two dozen times.

But I’d also meet so many people whose genuineness humbled me to tears.

Andrew Thuita came to the memorial on Tuesday because his girlfriend works nearby downtown. She was safe, but he'd been too close to tragedy before. In 2018, he’d gone shopping at the Jeffersontown Kroger on the same day two people were shot and killed. Thuita says that if he had gone to get groceries five minutes later than he did, he would have been in that store when the shooter started firing.

Now gun violence has hit Louisville, again.

"This is what we have," Thuita said, gesturing to the flowers. "Another statistic in America. … There is something wrong."

I said farewell to Thuita, and then, shifted gears entirely when I spotted a small group staring puzzled at a map of Louisville's Bourbon District posted just outside 333 E. Main St.

“Are you lost?” I asked the woman.

"I’m always lost," she said. "We’re either going to Angel’s Envy or Rabbit Hole."

So I pointed east and showed her Angel's Envy was just an eyeshot away, and I warned her that Rabbit Hole was a bit of a hike from where we were. Then her tone changed, and her expression became both grateful and sincere.

"Thank you," she told me. "I am so, so sorry about what happened here."

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Even though she wasn't from here and probably picked the worst week she could have to visit downtown, I could tell she was hurting for our city, too.

Perhaps the most obvious sign that the block around 333 E. Main St. was groping for normalcy was the four Bullitt County school buses that drove by. Cara and I wondered which nearby museum might be hosting a field trip for them. They were clearly going somewhere. It wasn’t just workers and residents who were back downtown. Schoolchildren were here, too.

Standing outside Old National Bank, it wasn’t difficult to tell the difference between who had come to honor the victims and who just happened to be at the memorial the day after the shooting. There was a common hesitation that fluttered among the people who understood where they were, and a clear shock when people realized what they’d come across.

A young man seemingly in his 20s stopped in his tracks when he saw the caution tape outside the building.

"Is this the bank," he whispered to me, almost as if he was apologizing for intruding. When I told him it was, he reverently made the Sign of the Cross, before he continued walking.

As lunchtime approached, more people found their way to the memorial and the piles of flowers on the east side of the building grew.

Pastor Kevin Canterbury of Rock Vineyard Church carried his four-year-old daughter, Lenya, and her small stuffed animal named Foxy to the site. She was too young, of course, to understand the details of what had happened, but he believed that as difficult as the day before had been, there was a kindness in it that she needed to see.

"People have been so moved … it's just a really beautiful response from the community," he told me. "We may have taken a punch but we're gonna get back, and we're stronger together."

That "together" looked different for everyone, who came to the corner of Main and Preston streets on Tuesday.

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Underneath the stunningly bright blue spring sky, motorcyclists blared loud music and revved their engines. A small group of chaplains prayed over a University of Louisville Health employee, who'd listened to the helicopters and the sirens all day on Monday.

Couples held hands. Downtown workers sipped on coffee. One cyclist road by pulling a small trailer with garden tools and plants.

Several volunteers installed five crosses bearing the victim's names, while a passenger in a car hollered out of the window "We’re praying, we’re praying, we’re praying."

Then, as it does most weekday nights, the downtown workday shifted toward the more quiet evening.

The traffic thinned and the noise lulled.

The ground around 333 E. Main St. will never be what it was before five people were killed on Monday. Hearts are broken and lives are destroyed.

But somehow through the tears, the shock and the sadness downtown Louisville kept moving on Tuesday.

It was by no means normal, but for some, it was part of a vacation.

Or a commute.

And a memorial to arguably one of the worst things that's ever happened in our city.

Reach reporter Maggie Menderski at mmenderski@courier-journal.com or 502-582-4053.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville Old National Bank transitions from crime scene to memorial