New Orleans attack live updates: FBI says terror suspect acted alone in rampage; Bourbon Street reopens
New Orleans attacker Shamsud-Din Jabbar claimed he joined ISIS prior to this summer and believed truck massacre would bring attention to ‘war between the believers and the disbelievers’
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Your support makes all the difference.Law enforcement officials have said they believe that Shamsud-Din Jabbar is solely responsible for the deadly New Year’s Day truck attack in New Orleans.
Jabbar, 42, killed at least 14 people and injured dozens after evading police barriers and ramming a rented truck into a crowd of revelers on New Orleans’s Bourbon Street on Wednesday morning. Police shot and killed the attacker.
The FBI is now looking at a possible link between Jabbar, a U.S. citizen and Army veteran, and the driver in the Tesla Cybertruck blast outside Donald Trump’s Las Vegas hotel, which took place just hours earlier.
Officials have emphasized they have no evidence tying the two attacks together so far, despite superficial similarities.
Matthew Livelsberger, 37, a former Army veteran of Colorado Springs, was allegedly behind the wheel when the vehicle exploded in Vegas.
Livelsberger and Jabbar served at the same military base in North Carolina, and deployed to Afghanistan at the same time, but did not appear to interact, police said.
President Joe Biden said that Jabbar was “inspired by ISIS” and had a “desire to kill. He said: “I know while this person committed a terrible assault on the city, the spirit of our New Orleans will never, never, never be defeated. It always will shine forth.”
The college football Sugar Bowl kicked off in New Orleans between Notre Dame and the University of Georgia on Thursday afternoon, a day after its previous start time was postponed due to the truck attack.
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Workers torn after Bourbon Street reopens hours after blood stained the sidewalk: ‘My anxiety is at an all-time high’
Less than 36 hours after a massacre at the gateway to the French Quarter, New Orleans officials reopened Bourbon Street, now heavily guarded with military police, fresh barricades and 14 roses to mark the 14 people who were killed in what law enforcement officials have labeled an act of terror.
Authorities removed the remaining bodies and swept blood from the sidewalks and streets beginning at 2 a.m. Thursday. Deliveries to the street’s bars and restaurants resumed a few hours later.
Several blocks of Bourbon and surrounding streets had been blocked off, businesses were closed and residents living in the footprint of an active crime scene were navigating police tape and barricades after a driver plowed a pickup truck into a crowd shortly after 3 a.m. Wednesday.
Thousands of workers — still checking on the safety of friends and colleagues — are now returning to the bars, restaurants, music venues, hotels, gift shops and other businesses that keep the city’s tourism economy running.
More details in our full story.
Bourbon reopens hours after blood cleaned from the streets. Workers are conflicted
EXCLUSIVE: Service industry workers tell that New Orleans is failing to protect the people fueling the city’s critical tourist economy
FBI concludes search of Texas home linked to Jabbar
The FBI has finished searching a Harris County, Texas, home believed to be the residence of New Orleans attacker Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the agency’s Houston office announced on Thursday.
“At this time, there is no threat to residents in that area,” the office said in a statement on X. “Due to the ongoing nature of the investigation, we are unable to provide any details.”
Neighbors describe New Orleans attacker as ‘very quiet person’
Neighbors of New Orleans truck attacker Shamsud-Din Jabbar say they had little reason to believe he was an extremist.
“Calm, collected, don’t talk much, very quiet person, don’t interrupt, us we don’t interrupt him,” a neighbor in the Houston area told KHOU11 of Jabbar.
Authorities have painted a different picture of the man, who allegedly posted on social media about his allegiance to ISIS and intention to wage religious violence.
‘We can’t believe he’s alive'
A Pennsylvania man in a wheelchair hit in the New Orleans truck attack endured a harrowing night of medical treatment but appears to be improving, his family says.
Jeremi Sensky, 51, was ejected from his chair in the attack and left with bruises to the face and head, plus two broken legs.
After 10 hours of surgery, doctors were able to remove Sensky from a ventilator.
“We thought he was dead,” his daughter, Heaven Sensky-Kirsch, told The Asssociated Press. “We can’t believe he’s alive.”
‘New Orleans is very secure’: LA Attorney General
Louisiana officials are trying to reassure members of the public that New Orleans is safe and marquee events like the Sugar Bowl can go forward after Wednesday’s truck attack.
“The @SugarBowlNola needed to go forward,” Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill wrote on X. “This was always a game-time decision. I believe New Orleans is very secure. We can honor the lives that were lost by not bowing down to fear brought on by a cowardly terrorist attack.”
Too soon to rule out or confirm link between New Orleans and Vegas attacks
Las Vegas police said on Thursday they don’t have enough information to confirm or rule out a possible link between the explosion outside a Trump hotel in Vegas on Wednesday and the New Orleans truck attack that took place earlier that day.
The incidents have passing similarities—the people of interest in both incidents served in the U.S. military, including at the same base, and both used rented trucks—but officials haven’t found any definitive link to suggest a wider, coordinated plot.
For now, officials are urging people not to reach conclusions until more investigative work can be done.
“If these turned out to be simply similarities, very strange similarities to have,” Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Kevin McMahill said. “We’re not prepared to rule in or rule out anything at this point. There’s lots more for us to do in this investigation. We haven’t even gotten into the phones and the computers.”
Fans still flocking to Sugar Bowl, despite New Orleans attack
The New Orleans truck attack hasn’t stopped football fans from assembling at the Caesars Superdome for the college football Sugar Bowl.
The game, originally scheduled for Wednesday, was postponed to today.
Officials have installed heightened security measures around the stadium, including scores of police officers and bomb-sniffing dogs.
‘No record’ New Orleans attacker overlapped with Las Vegas person of interest in Afghanistan
Officials are investigating whether there’s any possible link between the New Orleans truck attack early on Wednesday and an explosion set off in a Tesla Cybertruck outside a Trump hotel in Las Vegas later that day.
So far, officials haven’t found any clear link between the two incidents, and Las Vegas officials added further reason for scrutiny on Thursday.
New Orleans attacker Shamsud-Din Jabbar and Vegas person of interest Matthew Alan Livelsberger both served in the U.S. military Afghanistan in 2009 and were stationed at one point at Fort Liberty (formerly Fort Bragg), North Carolina.
However, there’s no evidence Jabbar and Livelsberger overlapped overseas or at the North Carolina base, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Kevin McMahill said during a Thursday press conference.
“It’s a very large military base,” McMahill said. “We have no record they served in the same unit, or even the same years at Fort Bragg.”
FBI digging through social media for clues on Jabbar
Emerging information suggests Shamsud-Din Jabbar was motivated by religious fanaticism.
Officials are now combing through social media to understand more about what drove the Texas man to ram a group of civilians in New Orleans with his truck.
“So what I can tell you right now is that he was 100 percent inspired by ISIS, and so we’re digging, we’re digging through more of the social media, more interviews, working with some of our other partners to ascertain a little bit more,” FBI Deputy Assistant Director Christopher Raia said on Wednesday.
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