A woman was hospitalized after being shot in the arm early Sunday morning in an alley behind a bar on Louisville's Bardstown Road, according to police. She was taken to UofL Hospital with injuries described as non-life-threatening, and investigators say all parties involved have since been accounted for.
Louisville Metro Police officers responded just after 3 a.m. to the 1100 block of Bardstown Road on a reported shooting, according to wdrbwave.com. Officers arriving on scene found the woman suffering from a gunshot wound to her arm. LMPD's Non-Fatal Shooting Unit believes the shooting took place in an alley behind Atomic, the station reports, though the investigation remains ongoing.
No further details on a suspect or possible motive have been released, and police have not said whether the shooting is connected to the bar itself, its patrons, or staff. Bardstown Road is lined with bars and restaurants, and the area has seen repeated gunfire incidents in recent months.
A Bar With a History of Shootings and a City Crackdown
This is not the first time violence has erupted near Atomic this year. A June 21 shooting occurred across Bardstown Road from the bar and left a man injured, according to security camera footage reviewed by the Courier Journal. That shooting was one of two that happened on Bardstown Road in the Highlands that same night, per the newspaper's reporting.
In the aftermath, Louisville Metro ABC issued an Emergency Suspension Order against Atomic, located at 1125 Bardstown Road, following the weekend shooting incident, according to a city announcement from Louisville Metro government. Atomic later reached a settlement with the city's liquor control agency tied to that shooting and related security allegations, the Courier Journal reported. Under the terms, the bar agreed to employ three off-duty Louisville Metro Police officers on Saturdays through November 1, as well as on high-attendance Fridays.
Same Block Has Seen Deadly Violence Too
The same stretch of Bardstown Road has produced other violent incidents beyond the Atomic cases. Officers responded around 1:40 a.m. on a Thursday in 2021 to a reported shooting in the 1100 block, in the parking lot beside Nowhere Bar, according to WLKY. In that incident, officers found a man who had been shot; he was pronounced dead at the scene.
Louisville tracks gun violence citywide through the Louisville Metro Gun Violence Dashboard, which shares real-time data across LMPD districts with the stated purpose of expanding government transparency and creating opportunities for collaboration between agencies, according to Louisville Metro's Office for Violence Prevention. LMPD also publishes a Non-Fatal Shootings Weekly Report tracking year-to-date shooting totals and changes from prior years, though complete figures for the current period were not available.
As for Sunday's shooting, police have not released additional information about how the woman sustained her injury or whether anyone will face charges. The investigation remains active, and no suspect description has been made public.
