At least 15 people were killed after man drove a truck drove through a New Orleans crowd early on New Year’s Day, the city’s coroner said late Wednesday, and federal authorities are searching for possible additional suspects.
The brazen attack, which injured dozens more people, is being investigated as an act of terrorism by the FBI. It forced the delay of a college football game and is drawing attention to security concerns in New Orleans, which is set to host the Super Bowl this year in a few weeks’ time.
At approximately 3:15 a.m. local time, a pickup truck plowed through New Year’s revellers along Bourbon and Canal streets in New Orleans’ popular French Quarter.
The driver then exited the vehicle and exchanged gunfire with police, who shot and killed the suspect. Two officers also sustained injuries but are in stable condition, according to Anne Kirkpatrick, superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD).
Police initially said some 35 people were left injured, some critically, while 10 victims were initially pronounced dead at the scene.
A black flag with white lettering lies on the ground rolled up behind a pickup truck that a man drove into a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, killing and injuring a number of people, early Wednesday morning, Jan. 1, 2025. The FBI said they recovered an Islamic State group flag, which is black with white lettering, from the vehicle.
(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
The FBI identified the driver as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, a U.S. citizen from Texas, and said it is working to determine Jabbar’s potential associations and affiliations with terrorist organizations.
An Islamic State group flag was found inside the vehicle involved in the attack, the FBI said, along with weapons and a “potential” improved explosive device (IED).
“We do not believe that Jabbar was solely responsible,” Alethea Duncan, an assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s New Orleans field office, said at a news conference. Duncan added that the FBI believe Jabbar was an army veteran.
U.S. President Joe Biden, speaking from Camp David late Wednesday, said he was informed by the FBI the suspect had posted videos on social media hours before the attack indicating he had been inspired by the Islamic State group, and expressed “a desire to kill.”
This undated passport photo provided by the FBI on Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025, shows Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar. (FBI via AP).
Guns and pipe bombs were also found in the vehicle, according to a Louisiana State Police intelligence bulletin obtained by The Associated Press. The devices, which were concealed within coolers, were wired for remote detonation, the bulletin said, and a corresponding remote control was discovered inside the vehicle.
Investigators have reviewed video showing three men and a woman placing an improvised explosive device in connection with the car attack, according to the bulletin.
The FBI’s Houston field office said in a post on X shortly after 4 p.m. ET on Wednesday that it was conducting law enforcement activity “related to this morning’s New Orleans attack” in the north end of the city. The public were asked to avoid a cordoned-off area around Hugh Road and North Crescent Peak Drive as specialized teams were expected to be on-site for “several hours.”
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New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell described the killings as a “terrorist attack.”
Kirkpatrick said the driver was “hell-bent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did.”
“It was very intentional behavior. This man was trying to run over as many people as he could,” Kirkpatrick said.
Jabbar joined the U.S. Army in 2007, serving on active duty in human resources and information technology and deploying to Afghanistan from 2009 to 2010, the service said. He transferred to the Army Reserve in 2015 and left in 2020 with the rank of staff sergeant.
Bollards set for replacement before attack
The attack prompted officials to postpone the Sugar Bowl — a college football playoff game between Notre Dame and Georgia originally set for Wednesday evening — by 24 hours.
The Caesar’s Superdome in New Orleans is also set to host the NFL’s Super Bowl on Feb. 9.
Louisiana governor Jeff Landry said at a press conference Wednesday that he had intended to issue an emergency declaration on Thursday to “bring all of our federal state and local agencies to bear in preparation” for both the Super Bowl as well as Mardi Gras, the annual raucous celebration set to hit New Orleans streets in early March.
Because of the attack, Landry said he issued the declaration a day early.
He went on to insist that the Superdome and the surrounding areas are “safe” as law enforcement continue to investigate the attack.
Emergency services attend the scene on Bourbon Street after a vehicle drove into a crowd on New Orleans’ Canal and Bourbon Street, Wednesday Jan. 1, 2025.
(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
A member of the emergency services walks past a police barricade after a vehicle drove into a crowd on New Orleans’ Canal and Bourbon Street, Wednesday Jan. 1, 2025.
(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
But the incident is also drawing attention to malfunctioning bollards that were installed on Bourbon Street 10 years ago.
An infrastructure package set to roll out in advance of the Super Bowl in February included plans to repair the bollards, according to Mayor Cantrell, but the fixes weren’t in place ahead of Wednesday’s attack.
A back-up plan that saw police vehicles stationed where bollards would normally be in place failed to prevent the attack as the pickup truck drove along the sidewalk instead, behind police cruisers, Kirkpatrick said.
“We did indeed have a plan, but the terrorist defeated it,” she said.
Landry said implementing new “permanent” security measures in the wake of the attack will be a “top priority” ahead of the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras.
Witnesses describe ‘pandemonium’
“When I got to work this morning, it was kind of pandemonium everywhere,” Derick Fleming, chief bellhop at a downtown hotel, told The Associated Press. “There were a couple of bodies on the ground covered up. Police were looking for bombs in garbage cans.”
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 barreling 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.”
Investigators work the scene after a person drove a vehicle into a crowd killing several, earlier on Canal and Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025.
(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
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.
“We looked out our front door and saw caution tape and dead silence and it’s eerie,” said Tessa Cundiff, an Indiana native who moved to the French Quarter a few years ago. “This is not what we fell in love with, it’s sad.”
Elsewhere, life went on as normal in the city known to some for a motto that translates to “let the good times roll.”
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, people crowded in for breakfast as upbeat pop music played. Two blocks away, people drank at a bar, seemingly as if nothing happened.
“To all the families of those who were killed, to all those who were injured, to all the people of New Orleans who are grieving today, I want you to know I grieve with you,” Biden said at Camp David. “Our nation grieves with you.”
Biden added the FBI was also investigating any potential links between the New Orleans attack and the explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck outside the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas just hours later. Las Vegas police said they were treating the incident, which killed one person inside the vehicle, as a potential act of terror.
U.S. president-elect Donald Trump offered sympathy to the New Orleans victims in a statement on social media but also said the attack proved his claim that “the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country,” despite the fact Jabbar was a U.S. citizen.
“The Trump Administration will fully support the City of New Orleans as they investigate and recover from this act of pure evil!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social website.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a statement posted to X on Wednesday afternoon that the news out of New Orleans was “horrifying.”
“My heart is with the loved ones of the victims, those fighting to recover, and everyone impacted by this senseless act of violence,” he said.
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.
— with files from The Associated Press