NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The FBI now says the New Orleans truck attacker acted alone in an “act of terrorism” when he drove a pickup truck into a crowd of New Year’s revelers early Wednesday, killing 14 people. The driver had posted videos on social media hours before the carnage saying he was inspired by the Islamic State group and expressing a desire to kill, President Joe Biden said.
The FBI identified the driver as 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar.
Officials have not yet released the names of the people killed in the attack, but their families and friends have started sharing their stories. About 30 people were injured.
Here is the latest:
Temporary bollards and extra security in place along Bourbon Street
As Bourbon Street reopened to the public Thursday afternoon, people strolled past temporary yellow bollards placed in the street.
In addition to tourists, locals, reporters, local law enforcement and heavily armed Homeland Security officers walked along the typically raucous stretch of street.
At a morning news conference, officials had promised additional resources and safety details as thousands of people attended the Sugar Bowl at the Superdome, about a mile (1.6 kilometers) away from where Wednesday morning’s attack occurred.
‘I never saw this coming’
Chris Pousson, of Beaumont, Texas, said he became friends with Shamsud-Din Jabbar in middle school and recalled him as quiet and reserved.
“This is a complete shock,” Pousson said. “Everyone I spoke with, all of our classmates, we’re all just in disbelief really.”
He said that after high school, they reconnected on Facebook around 2008 or 2009 and would message back and forth until around 2018 or 2019.
“He was always like glory to God and all that stuff, praise to the highest,” Pousson, 42, said. “He was always promoting his faith in a positive manner. It was never anything negative.”
Pousson, who is retired after serving 16 years in the Air Force, where he worked in anti-terrorism, said,
“I never saw this coming.”
“If any red flags would have popped off, I would have caught them and I would have contacted the proper authorities,” he said. “But he didn’t give anything to me that would have suggested that he is capable of doing what happened.”
Biden salutes New Orleans’ ‘tremendous spirit’
“It can’t keep it down. It really can’t, and we’re seeing that today. The Sugar Bowl is back on,” President Joe Biden said at an unrelated White House event. He noted that Bourbon Street had reopened with reinforced security the day after the attack.
“The people of New Orleans are sending an unmistakable message. They will not let this attack or the attacker’s deluded ideology overcome us,” Biden said.
Biden orders accelerated investigations into New Orleans attack, Las Vegas explosion
The president spoke about the two incidents at an unrelated White House event on Thursday.
He says he ordered accelerated investigations “so we have answers to our unanswered questions.” He said he also has ordered that every single federal resource be provided “to get the job done.”
The FBI earlier Thursday said there is no “definitive link,” as of now, between the events in New Orleans and Las Vegas.
‘They ain’t gonna kill our good time’
Ohio residents Jeffrey and Briana Tolle, both in their fifties, strolled down Bourbon Street for their very first time shortly after it reopened, with Mardi Gras beads around their necks and beverages in hand.
They had spent the morning enjoying beignets and remained determined to enjoy their trip.
“We’re like, well we’re going, we’re not stopping,” Jeffrey Tolle said. “They ain’t gonna kill our good time.”
Fans gear up and turn out for the Sugar Bowl
Ticketed fans in Georgia and Notre Dame gear packed a plaza adjacent to the Superdome and enjoyed music under clear skies — and the watch of snipers on rooftops — before filtering into the stadium for Thursday’s College Football Playoff quarterfinal at the Sugar Bowl.
“It was a lot of fun. It felt safe,” said Shannon Horsey, a Georgia fan in her 40s who lives Austin, Texas.
“Coming in they searched by bag thoroughly. So I felt like, ‘OK, they’re really paying attention.’”
Joe Horsey, a Georgia graduate, found the pre-game crowd larger than he expected, but the “energy lower than a normal football game.”
Meanwhile, Horsey found opposing fans were being somewhat more polite to one another than usual.
“SEC football can get nasty on game day and can get a little raucous,” he said. “But there’s a little different sense of civility and that there’s bigger things than football.”
New Orleans locals roll up their sleeves at a blood drive
The mood was patient and upbeat at 2609 Canal Street. Donors stood in line or sat on fold-out chairs, chatting cheerfully and snacking on potato chips as they waited.
Billy Weales, CEO of The Blood Center, said the last time he had seen similar turnout was for 9/11.
“I think we need a bigger parking lot,” he said, looking out at about 60 people who were waiting to give blood at one of the donation trucks parked outside.
Mandy Garrett, a 34-year-old engineer, said she heard about the blood drive on Instagram.
“It’s what I can do. There’s really not much else we can do … where you feel like you have a little bit of control of the outcome,” she said.
The New Year’s Day attack on Bourbon Street injured dozens and killed 14 people. The attacker also died.
How did authorities conclude that the attacker acted alone?
Officials have reviewed surveillance video showing people standing near an improvised explosive device that Jabbar placed in a cooler along the city’s Bourbon Street, where the attack occurred.
Following the review, authorities “do not believe at this point these people are involved … in any way,” said Christopher Raia, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counter-terrorism division.
Lousiana’s attorney general: The Sugar Bowl ‘had to go on’
“I believe New Orleans is very secure,” Attorney General Liz Murrill said Thursday in a post on the social platform X. “We can honor the lives that were lost by not bowing down to fear brought on by a cowardly terrorist attack.”
The College Football Playoff quarterfinal is scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. CST on Thursday, 36 hours after the deadly attack on Bourbon Street.
The scene near the Superdome
Crowds are already flocking to the Caesars Superdome ahead of the Sugar Bowl. Alongside food trucks and foot traffic, a fleet of armored vehicles maintains a watchful presence.
Man injured in the attack spent hours in surgery, family says
Heaven Sensky-Kirsch says her father, Jeremi Sensky, endured 10 hours of surgery for injuries from the truck attack that included two broken legs. He was taken off a ventilator Thursday.
Jeremi Sensky was ejected from the wheelchair he has used since a 1999 car accident and had bruises to his face and head, Sensky-Kirsch said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.
Sensky, 51, had driven from his home in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, to New Orleans to celebrate the holiday.
He and his wife, his daughter, his son-in-law and two friends stopped for a few days in Nashville before arriving in New Orleans.
Before the attack, Sensky and the two friends had been having pizza, his daughter said. Sensky left them to return to his hotel on Canal Street because he felt cold, she said.
Sensky-Kirsch said others could see the attacker coming and were able to run out of the way, but her father “was stuck on the road.”
When he didn’t return to the hotel, they went to look for him, ending up in an emergency room, she said.
“We thought he was dead,” Sensky-Kirsch said. “We can’t believe he’s alive.”
‘The mood in the city, we feel it today’
As New Orleans approaches the start of its carnival season on Monday, a monthslong period leading up to Mardi Gras, the city normally celebrates with parades and king cake.
But Kim Do, 47, whose Hi-Do bakery is a beloved supplier of the carnival treat, says she worries that orders for the biggest moneymaker of her family-run business will be significantly down.
“The mood in the city, we feel it today, I don’t know how we’re going to move forward after this tragedy,” Do said.
“I personally would be scared to even go out there, to be in the parades — I think there’s going to be a lot less people, a lot less activities,” she said. “I think the city will try to go back to the normal stuff as much as possible but I think we’re all going to be a little more cautious.”
FBI clarifies death toll in New Orleans attack
Fifteen people were killed in the attack, said Christopher Raia, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counter-terrorism division. That number includes the 14 victims killed plus the assailant, Shamsud-Din Jabbar.
FBI says it isn’t sure why Bourbon Street was targeted
“We know that he specifically picked out Bourbon Street, not sure why,” said Christopher Raia, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division.
“He was 100 percent inspired by ISIS,” he added.
Bourbon Street to reopen ahead of the Sugar Bowl, mayor says
“The city of New Orleans, we’re resilient,” New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell said.
“The confidence is there to reopen Bourbon Street to the public before game time today,” Cantrell added.
FBI says New Orleans truck attacker acted alone in ‘act of terrorism’
The FBI obtained surveillance video of Shamsud Din Jabbar placing the explosive devices where they were found, said Christopher Raia, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counter-terrorism division.
The FBI also found “no definitive link” between the New Orleans attack and the Tesla Cybertruck explosion outside a Trump hotel in Las Vegas.
Hundreds of tips have come in
The FBI has received more than 400 tips from the public, some from New Orleans and others from other states, Christopher Raia, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counter-terrorism division, said at a news conference on Thursday.
Is there a connection between the New Orleans attack and a Cybertruck explosion in Las Vegas?
U.S. President Joe Biden said Wednesday evening the FBI was looking into whether an explosion outside a Las Vegas hotel owned by President-elect Donald Trump was connected to the New Orleans attack.
Fireworks and camp fuel canisters were found in a Tesla Cybertruck that blew up outside the Trump International Hotel early Wednesday, killing a suspect inside the vehicle.
The person who died in the explosion was an active-duty U.S. Army soldier who spent time at the base formerly known as Fort Bragg, three U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Thursday. The officials also spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose details of his service.
The truck explosion came hours after a driver, 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, rammed a truck into a crowd in New Orleans. Jabbar, a U.S. Army veteran, also spent time at Fort Bragg, a massive Army base in North Carolina that is home to Army special forces command. An official told the AP that there is no apparent overlap in their assignments there.
The investigation so far has not shown the incidents are related, and authorities don’t think the men knew each other, two law enforcement officials said. The officials were not authorized to discuss details of the investigation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
