New Orleans: A driver wrought carnage on New Orleans’ famed French Quarter early on New Year’s Day, killing 10 people as he rammed a pickup truck into a crowd before being shot to death by police, authorities said.
More than 30 people were injured as Wednesday’s attack turned festive Bourbon Street into macabre mayhem. The FBI is investigating it as an act of terrorism and said an Islamic State group flag was found in the vehicle.
The FBI identified the driver as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, a US citizen from Texas.
Investigators were working to determine Jabbar’s potential associations and affiliations with terrorist organizations, the FBI said.
Jabbar was killed in a firefight with police following the attack around 3.15 am in an area teeming with New Year’s revellers, the FBI said.
A photo circulated among law enforcement officials showed a bearded Jabbar wearing camouflage next to the truck after he was killed by police.
Investigators recovered a handgun and an AR-style rifle after the shootout, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The officials were not authorised to discuss details of the investigation publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
The FBI said a potential improvised explosive device was located in the vehicle and other potential explosive devices were also located in the French Quarter.
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell described the killings as a “terrorist attack.”
New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said the driver was “hell-bent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did.”
“It was very intentional behaviour. This man was trying to run over as many people as he could,” Kirkpatrick said.
After the vehicle stopped, the driver emerged and opened fire on responding officers, police said. Officers returned fire, killing the driver, police said.
Two officers were wounded and are in stable condition, police said. They were in addition to 33 people injured in the vehicle attack.
“When I got to work this morning, it was kind of pandemonium everywhere,” Derick Fleming, chief bellhop at a downtown hotel, told the AP. “There were a couple of bodies on the ground covered up. Police were looking for bombs in garbage cans.”
New Orleans city councilmember Helena Moreno told WWL-TV that after being briefed on the attack, she understands that “there is a potential that other suspects could be involved in this and all hands on deck on determining who these individuals are and finding them.”
The area is a prime New Year’s Eve destination.
Tens of thousands of college football fans were in the city for Wednesday night’s Sugar Bowl playoff quarterfinal between Georgia and Notre Dame at the nearby Superdome. The game is expected to be played as scheduled.
University of Georgia President Jere Morehead said a student was critically injured in the attack and is receiving medical treatment.
Zion Parsons told NOLA.com that he and two friends were leaving a Bourbon Street restaurant when he heard a “commotion” and “banging” and turned his head to see a vehicle “barrelling” onto the pavement toward them. He dodged the vehicle, but it struck one of his friends.
“I yell her name, and I turn my head, and her leg is twisted and contorted above and around her back. And there was just blood,” Parsons said. The 18-year-old said he ran after hearing gunshots shortly thereafter.
“As you’re walking down the street, you can just look and see bodies, just bodies of people, just bleeding, broken bones,” he said. “I just ran until I couldn’t hear nothing no more.”
Bourbon Street has had barriers to prevent vehicle attacks since 2017, but Wednesday’s rampage happened amid a major project to remove and replace the devices, which left the area vulnerable.
Work began in November and was expected to be largely wrapped up in time for the Super Bowl, which is being played in the city on February 9.
Hours after the attack, several coroner’s office vans were parked on the corner of Bourbon and Canal streets, cordoned off by police tape with crowds of dazed tourists standing around, some trying to navigate their luggage through the labyrinth of blockades.
Elsewhere though, life went on as normal in the city known to some for a motto that translates to “let the good times roll.”
Near Bourbon and Canal streets, close to where the truck came to rest, some people were talking about the attack while others dressed in Georgia gear talked football. At a cafe a block away from the crime scene, people crowded in for breakfast as upbeat pop music played. Two blocks away, people stood around drinking beer at a bar, seemingly as if nothing happened.
“We recognise that there are tourists around us, and we urge all to avoid the French Quarter as this is an active investigation,” Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said. “We understand the concerns of the community and want to reassure everyone that the safety of the French Quarter and the city of New Orleans remains our top priority.”
President Joe Biden, speaking to reporters in Delaware, said he felt “anger and frustration” over the attack but would refrain from further comment until more is known.
“My heart goes out to the victims and their families who were simply trying to celebrate the holiday,” Biden said in a statement. “There is no justification for violence of any kind, and we will not tolerate any attack on any of our nation’s communities.”
The attack is the latest example of a vehicle being used as a weapon to carry out mass violence, a trend that has alarmed law enforcement officials and that can be difficult to protect against.
A 50-year-old Saudi doctor plowed into a Christmas market teeming with holiday shoppers in the German city of Magdeburg last month, killing four women and a 9-year-old boy.
A man who drove his SUV through a Christmas parade in suburban Milwaukee in 2021 is serving a life sentence after a judge rejected arguments from him and his family that mental illness drove him to do it. Six people were killed.
An Islamic extremist was sentenced last year to 10 life sentences for killing eight people with a truck on a bike path in Manhattan on Halloween in 2017. Also in 2017, a self-proclaimed admirer of Adolf Hitler slammed his car into counterprotesters at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia and is now serving a life sentence.
AP
