On Thursday (Jan. 9), the New Orleans City Council launched a formal investigation into the city’s handling of street barrier systems designed to discourage the sort of terrorist attacks that occurred on Bourbon Street early New Year’s Day morning.
The investigation, announced last week, will determine why the city’s busiest tourist thoroughfare was left without adequate physical barriers on January 1, allowing Shamsud-Din Jabbar to plow into dozens of pedestrians celebrating the holiday.
Council also plans to think about replacing the old barriers along Bourbon Street – a project currently underway – with latest ones that they weren’t designed to face up to attack like the one which happened last week.
The study will cover all features of the systems, from their design, to how they’re purchased and installed, to how they’re operated and maintained, and most significantly, who’s answerable for them.
“This is an ongoing legislative and security review of what has been going on, what has happened and how we got to this point,” Council President JP Morrell said at the meeting. “We will move as efficiently and quickly as possible, but we are not on anyone’s timeline. Our goal is to find out the facts and the truth.”
The lack of everlasting, physical street barriers on Bourbon Street became a point of contention after the New Year’s Eve terrorist attack on the tourist hub.
Jabbar, 42, passed a police automobile parked at the intersection of Bourbon and Canal streets, then ran three blocks down Bourbon Street, killing 14 people and injuring dozens more, before colliding with a parked crane.
Although the city installed retractable bollards along Bourbon during former Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s administration, they were replaced after the attack. City had access to other varieties of anti-vehicle barriersincluding portable Archer barriers that might be used along each streets and sidewalks, but haven’t been deployed. So Jabbar encountered no barriers that might stop the truck during his killing spree.
The bollards installed in 2017 were a part of a clear preventive effort vehicle ramming attacks resembling people who occurred a 12 months earlier in Nice, France. However, in accordance with a 2019 report prepared by the security company: these bars never worked properlypartly because they were poorly maintained after being clogged with Mardi Gras beads.
However, it took five years for the city to grow to be operational replacing themconstruction of the latest set of bollards will begin in November 2024 and construction will proceed through February 2025, just before the city is scheduled to host the Super Bowl. And these latest bollards, some safety experts say, are even weaker than the old ones – they weren’t designed to face up to high-speed, high-mass collisions with vehicles like the Jabbar, but somewhat to guard storefronts from accidental collisions .
“I think the path they’re going down is not the right path,” Jeffrey Halaut, an expert in vehicle barrier design, previously told Verite News. “I do not understand [the new bollards] as a sort of anti-terrorist solution.”
The council’s investigation will include technical specifications and safety assessments of street barrier systems installed along Bourbon Street. However, the council hopes to reply one fundamental query: who’s answerable for storing and deploying these security assets?
“It’s a very simple request: How does it work? Who’s in charge here? What will happen?” – Giarrusso said. “I specifically asked for management yesterday and no one from the administration has contacted me about it.”
Over the past few days, there was disagreement over whether responsibility for the barriers rests with the New Orleans Police Department, Department of Public Works, or the Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.
City law allows the council to analyze the activities of any city agency. Over the past few years, the local government has launched an investigation into the Entergy subcontractor hiring actors to perform at council sessions express support for the latest power plant; allegations of bid rigging in reference to Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s failed “smart cities” initiative; and the Mayor’s Office alleged use of public funds to provide political mail which were sent throughout the city.
As with previous investigations, the council will have the ability to call witnesses and force them to provide documents. Thursday’s edition includes a non-exhaustive list of potential witnesses council resolution start an investigation. They include Cantrell’s chief deputy Gilbert Montaño, New Orleans Office of Homeland Security Director Collin Arnold, Department of Public Works Director Rick Hathaway and Hard Rock Construction, the city’s contractor for the bollard substitute project.
Before the council approved the resolution, Morrell added an amendment stating that every one documents received by the council during the investigation are confidential.
“When you do one of these very long and in-depth investigations, when information comes to light prematurely, you can draw completely wrong conclusions,” Morrell said.
Verite News asked Morrell’s office to elucidate how the amended resolution complies with state public records law, which generally makes all government records public except where state law says they needs to be confidential. Neither Morrell nor his staff responded immediately.
The Public Records Act accommodates an exception for registers used in open legislative inquiriesbut this seems to use only to the state legislature. Another regulation is government registration containing certain sensitive security information confidential, nevertheless it is unclear whether this could allow the council to preemptively withhold documents that the council has not yet obtained, let alone reviewed.
It’s not about pointing fingers, councilors say
The agenda resolution didn’t specifically mention Kirkpatrick as a potential witness, although she could still be compelled to participate in the investigation. Kirkpatrick has previously said she plans to participate in all investigations into the attack – including one ordered by Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill.
On Wednesday (Jan. 8), Kirkpatrick got here under fire during a council hearing called by council member Oliver Thomas, who sharply criticized the police chief for failing to reply questions on the availability of safety reports on the city’s safety features, resembling barriers that block vehicles.
During Wednesday’s meeting, Kirkpatrick refused to reply questions from each of them about the attack. But she announced she was calling on former New York Police Commissioner William Bratton to guage the city’s security plans.
Thomas, who’s considering running for mayor, called the meeting a “fact-finding mission,” saying it was not a part of the council’s investigation. (At the end of the contentious meeting, he admitted that few facts had actually been established.)
At Thursday’s meeting, councilors repeatedly emphasized that the purpose of the council’s investigation was to strengthen security on Bourbon Street in the future, not to seek out a scapegoat for the attacks.
“I think it’s really important for everyone to understand that this investigation is not about pointing fingers,” said Council Vice President Helena Moreno. “It’s about really uniting our efforts to find solutions in the future.”
There is not any estimated timetable for the investigation at this stage. Morrell and his team stressed that this likely won’t occur until after Mardi Gras.
“The public should know that this is a legislative inquiry to examine security concerns about certain security infrastructures,” said Monet Brignac-Sullivan, Morrell’s communications director. “Like previous Council investigations, this project will probably be scrutinized and detailed. We will keep the public updated throughout the process, but we also emphasize that it is going to take a while and we ask in your patience.
