Saturday, 04 January 2025
Saturday, 04 January 2025
The FBI is investigating an incident in which at least 10 people were killed and 30 or more were injured when a driver crashed his truck into a crowd at high speed in New Orleans's French Quarter early on Wednesday as an act of terrorism, the agency said.
The driver was killed in a firefight with police following the attack around 3.15am Wednesday along Bourbon Street in the city's bustling French Quarter, the FBI said.
Investigators were combing the French Quarter for potential explosive devices, a law enforcement official told the Associated Press.
The official was not authorised to discuss details of the investigation publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Alethea Duncan also said officials were investigating at least one suspected improvised explosive device at the scene.
President Joe Biden called the New Orleans mayor to offer full federal support following the incident. Biden will continue to be briefed throughout the day, the White House said.
At a news conference, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell described the killings as a “terrorist attack” and the city's police chief said the act was clearly intentional.
New Orleans Police Commissioner Anne Kirkpatrick said the driver was “hell-bent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did.”
“It was very intentional behaviour. This man was trying to run over as many people as he could,” Kirkpatrick said.
After the vehicle stopped, the driver emerged and opened fire on responding officers, police said. Officers returned fire, killing the driver, police said. Two officers were wounded and are in stable condition.
The area is known as one of the largest New Year's Eve destinations.
Crowds in the city were ballooning in anticipation of Wednesday night's Sugar Bowl college football playoff game between Georgia and Notre Dame at the nearby Superdome. The stadium was on lockdown Wednesday morning, but the game was expected to go on as scheduled.
Kevin Garcia, 22, told CNN that he saw a truck slamming into people on a sidewalk and heard gunshots.
“A body came flying at me,” he said.
Whit Davis told the network that he heard people yelling and running to the back as he was leaving a nightclub.
“When they finally let us out of the club, police waved us where to walk and were telling us to get out of the area fast. I saw a few dead bodies they couldn't even cover up and tons of people receiving first aid," said Davis, 22.
The injured were taken to five hospitals, the city's emergency preparedness department said.
The White House said President Joe Biden had been briefed, and the Justice Department said Attorney General Merrick Garland was also briefed.
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.
A 50-year-old Saudi doctor plowed into a Christmas market teeming with holiday shoppers in the German city of Magdeburg last month, killing four women and a 9-year-old boy.
A man who drove his SUV through a Christmas parade in suburban Milwaukee in 2021 is serving a life sentence after a judge rejected arguments from him and his family that mental illness drove him to do it. Six people were killed.
An Islamic extremist was sentenced last year to 10 life sentences for killing eight people with a truck on a bike path in Manhattan on Halloween in 2017. Also in 2017, a self-proclaimed admirer of Adolf Hitler slammed his car into counterprotesters at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia and is now serving a life sentence.
