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:
‘His life ended that quick and with no reason,’ father of a victim says
Kareem Badawi, 18, had just finished his first semester at the University of Alabama, where he was studying mechanical engineering. He had made A’s in his first semester in college and joined a fraternity.
Home for winter break, Badawi had gone to New Orleans with friends to celebrate the new year. He was one of the 14 people killed in the New Year’s Day attack.
“My son is full of life. His is a social guy who likes to have friends and build friendship,” his father Belal Badawi said.
An honors student in high school and college, he was also athletic, playing football and other sports in high school.
“He is a lovely boy. I lost my son. He’s a good boy,” Badawi said of his son. “Unfortunately, his life ended that quick and with no reason. Just nothing he did to deserve for somebody to come and kill him.”
‘Unfortunately, it’s business as usual’
Mark Tabor, 61, the manager of a Willie’s Chicken Shack on Bourbon, said it was strange to feel the disconnect between the normal hustle of the French Quarter outside and the violence he had witnessed less than 48 hours earlier.
“I’m glad they cleaned up the streets, but it’s like everything’s forgotten. It’s sad,” he said in an interview Thursday afternoon.
He had been getting ready to close up when the violence started early on New Year’s Day, but there were still diners at every table, he said. Gun shots rang out, everybody started running inside, and he locked the doors and hid in the back of the restaurant with his employees and customers until police said it was safe to come out.
He said officers tried to lead people so they could avoid seeing the bodies in the street.
“It looked like a nightmare,” he said.
Tabor sounded calm as he talked about the events, but he said he was still feeling jumpy. While he said he is used to dealing with the reality of violence in the city, there were some images he just couldn’t get out of his head.
He said one of the victims was a girl his daughter had gone to school with.
“She lost her life right in front,” he said.
Outside, tourists strolled down the street past groups of armed police officers. The bars were filling up just as the sun began to set. A woman danced in the street in front of a daiquiri shop, closing her eyes as she swallowed a sugary beignet.
“They always come back,” said Tabor. “Unfortunately, it’s business as usual.”
FBI releases photos of the attacker from an hour before he drove through Bourbon Street
The FBI has released photos of surveillance footage that the agency says shows Shamsud-Din Jabbar an hour before he drove a truck down Bourbon Street, killing 14 people and injuring dozens of others.
In the surveillance footage, Jabbar is dressed in a long light brown coat, a button-down shirt, blue jeans, and what appears to be brown dress shoes. He is wearing glasses.
The footage captures Jabbar walking down Dauphine Street, a block away from Bourbon Street, shortly after 2 a.m.
Biden ’going to try’ to visit New Orleans
Biden’s days in office are numbered, with the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump on Jan. 20 approaching fast.
Biden is expected to eulogize former President Jimmy Carter next week before he travels to Rome for several days to meet with Pope Francis and Italian government officials.
Asked at the White House on Thursday if he planned on visiting New Orleans, Biden said: “I’m going to try.”
Music is back on Bourbon Street
Along the same block of Bourbon Street where the truck rampaged, a brass band plays to a large crowd. Across the street, a bouquet of white flowers rests on the brick sidewalk.
“Rest in peace, y’all,” one of the drummers shouts after the band finishes a song.
Trombone player and lifelong New Orleans resident Jonas Green, 22, said it was important for his band to be out on Bourbon Street the day after the attack.
“I know with this music, it heals, it transforms the feelings that we’re going through into something better,” Green said. “Gotta keep on going.”
While the historic street has reopened to the public, a group of heavily armed Homeland Security troops still walked in the area alongside tourists.
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.
