FBI Identifies Driver Who Slammed Vehicle Into Crowd On New Orleans’ Bourbon Street; Authorities Investigate Connection To ISIS — Update
UPDATED, with new death toll The FBI has identified the driver of a Ford pickup truck who rammed the vehicle through New Year’s Day crowds along New Orleans’ Bourbon Street.
The coroner said that 15 people were killed, per the AP, and authorities said more than 30 people were injured. The driver, identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, a U.S. citizen from Texas, is now dead, the FBI said. He also was a U.S. Army veteran and the FBI believes he was honorably discharged.
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Weapons and a potential improvised explosive device were located in the vehicle, and other potential IEDs were located in the French Quarter the FBI said.
Federal law enforcement is investigating the incident as an act of terrorism.
“An ISIS flag was located on the vehicle, and the FBI is working to determine the subject’s potential associations and affiliations with terrorist organizations,” the FBI said.
The FBI is seeking information and video on a tip line, as they suspect that he had one or more associates who helped him carry out the attack.
“We do not believe that Jabbar was solely responsible,” Alethea Duncan, FBI assistant special agent in charge, told reporters this afternoon. “We are aggressively running down every lead, including those of his known associates.”
Images of the scene showed authorities surrounding a white Ford F-150 pickup truck that crashed into a fork lift after it was driven through the crowd.
At about 3:15 a.m., a man drove a pickup truck down Bourbon Street at a “very fast pace, and it was very intentional behavior,” said New Orleans Police Department Supt. Ann Kirkpatrick.
“This man was trying to run over as many people as he possibly could. It was not a DUI situation. This is more complex and more serious based on the information we have right now.”
She said that the driver went around police barricades, and that he was “hellbent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did.”
The perpetrator fired on New Orleans officers “from his vehicle when he crashed his vehicle,” Kirkpatrick said. Law enforcement returned fire, and he was pronounced dead at the scene. Two officers were shot and they are in stable condition, she said.
She said that more than 300 officers were deployed in the area last night.
President Joe Biden was briefed this morning on the news, and said that the FBI has taken the lead on the investigation.
“I have directed my team to ensure every resource is available as federal, state, and local law enforcement work assiduously to get to the bottom of what happened as quickly as possible and to ensure that there is no remaining threat of any kind,” Biden said in a statement.
The president said that “my heart goes out to the victims and their families who were simply trying to celebrate the holiday. There is no justification for violence of any kind, and we will not tolerate any attack on any of our nation’s communities.”
He later was asked whether the suspect was foreign or domestic, but told reporters, “I’m not going to say anything until I get all the facts.”
He said that his reaction upon hearing about the attack was one of “anger and frustration.”
All of the broadcast networks went to special reports along with cable news coverage, pushing lighter segments from morning shows. Lester Holt will anchor NBC Nightly News from Los Angeles this evening.
There was some confusion earlier in the day, as New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell described the incident as a “terrorist attack” to reporters, but The FBI’s Duncan initially appeared to dismiss that claim.
The incident took place just hours before the start of the Sugar Bowl at the city’s Superdome.
On NBC News, a witness, Jimmy Cothran, described seeing eight bodies that had been “mowed over,” as he and others were in lockdown in a nightclub. One man had tired tracks across his back and stomach.
The incident quickly drew comparisons to a vehicle attack on a Christmas market last month in Magdeburg, Germany. A suspect, a psychiatrist from Saudi Arabia with a history of anti-Islamic rhetoric, was arrested, but Germany’s interior minister said this week that they cannot jump to conclusions as to a motive, according to Reuters.
Before the driver’s identity was publicly released, President-elect Donald Trump weighed in with his own conclusions on Truth Social, writing, “When I said that the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country, that statement was constantly refuted by Democrats and the Fake News Media, but it turned out to be true. The crime rate in our country is at a level that nobody has ever seen before. Our hearts are with all of the innocent victims and their loved ones, including the brave officers of the New Orleans Police Department.” While media attention has spotlighted brazen acts of violence over the past year, the most recent FBI statistics showed the crime rate falling in 2023, while New Orleans reported significant drops in violent crime, outpacing other cities. Fox News had reported that the truck used in the attack had crossed the border two days ago, but later revised that piece of reporting to say that the truck was in the border town of Eagle Pass, TX in mid-November, while the suspect is believed to have rented the vehicle via the Turo app, per The New York Times.
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