- Authorities say a driver intentionally drove into a crowd of people early Wednesday morning in New Orleans.
- Police reported that 15 people were killed and at the very least 35 were injured.
- The suspect was identified as 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar.
Authorities said 15 people were killed and at the very least 35 injured after a driver plowed into a crowd in the guts of New Orleans after which began shooting.
The suspect was identified as Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, a 42-year-old army veteran.
Jabbar’s criminal record, obtained from the Texas Department of Public Safety and reviewed by Business Insider, shows he had previous arrests in 2002 and 2005, the previous for theft and the latter for driving with an invalid license. Both were classified as misdemeanors.
On Wednesday evening, the FBI said Texas authorities were searching a Houston location believed to be linked to Jabbar.
“FBI Houston and the Harris County Sheriff’s Office are continuing a court-authorized search of a location near the intersection of Hugh Road and Crescent Peak Drive,” the statement read. – wrote in the statement.
The agency said it made no arrests but dispatched specialized personnel to the Houston location, including a SWAT team, crisis negotiators and a bomb squad.
The truck drove onto Bourbon Street
New Orleans is reeling after a driver, later identified as Jabbar, drove a rented Ford pickup truck into a crowd on Bourbon Street around 3:15 a.m.
According to Alethea Duncan, an FBI special agent in New Orleans, Jabbar was killed in a shootout with police but is believed to be working with “a number of suspects.”
“We cannot go into the details of the history of this case at this time,” Duncan said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon. “We are working through this process to find all this information.”
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill he told NBC News stated that late Wednesday evening she could say “with some certainty” that many people were involved, even though it was unclear what number of.
Murrill added that in New Orleans, a fire broke out in a house rented from Airbnb, which is said to events during which improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, were produced.
Explosives were found on the scene, and the FBI confirmed in a statement that an ISIS flag was found in the vehicle.
President Joe Biden told a news conference that in the hours before the attack, the suspect posted videos “inspired by ISIS expressing a desire to kill.”
In a statement to Business Insider, car-sharing app Turo said Jabbar used its services to rent a truck.
(*15*) the statement read. “We are actively cooperating with the FBI. We currently know nothing about this guest’s past that, at the time of booking, would indicate that he poses a risk to our trust and safety.”
Superintendent Anne E. Kirkpatrick of the New Orleans Police Department said during an earlier news conference that the person was driving pickup on Bourbon Street “at a very fast pace.” Kirkpatrick said the person intentionally drove into the crowd.
She also said the driver shot two cops, whom she said were in stable condition.
Kirkpatrick said many of the injured were locals, not tourists.
Biden posted a statement that “the FBI is taking over the investigation and is investigating this incident as an act of terrorism.”
The city’s emergency preparedness campaign NOLA Ready initially reported there was a “mass casualty incident involving a vehicle that drove into a large crowd at Canal and Bourbon Streets.”
Emergency services on Bourbon Street on Wednesday. AP Photo/Gerald Herbert
Eyewitness accounts
Kevin Garcia, a 22-year-old who was present on the time, told CNN: “I just saw a truck hit everyone on the left side of Bourbon Sidewalk.”
He said there was a “body flying towards me” and that he heard gunshots.
One witness told CBS that the driver drove into the crowd on Bourbon Street at a high rate of speed, then got out and commenced shooting, and police returned fire.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said on X on Wednesday that a “horrific act of violence” took place on Bourbon Street this morning.
“Please join Sharon and me in praying for all the victims and first responders at the scene,” he wrote, referring to his wife. “I am urging anyone in the vicinity of the incident to avoid the area.”
Bourbon Street, in the French Quarter, is a famous party spot.
Some streets in and across the French Quarter were scheduled to be closed for New Year’s Eve celebrations, and Canal Street will remain open unless traffic becomes too heavy, local store Fox 8 WVUE-TV reported.
As a results of the attack, the Sugar Bowl game between the University of Georgia and the University of Notre Dame was postponed from Wednesday evening to Thursday afternoon.
