Bourbon Street is again open for business after 14 people were killed and 35 injured in a deadly attack on New Year’s Day.
On Thursday, just more than 36 hours after police said Shamsud-Din Jabbar drove a rented truck into a crowd, city officials were given back control of the popular tourist destination ahead of the evening’s Sugar Bowl as investigators continue to piece together information.
As of Friday, all of the victims have been identified and their families notified by New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) said officials hope to provide a detailed timeline of what exactly took place in the deadly attack but said doing so this early into what remains an active investigation would be premature.
Here’s what is known thus far.
Shamsud-Din Jabbar travels to New Orleans
The FBI said that Jabbar rented a Ford truck in Texas on Dec. 30 and began the nearly 350-mile drive between Houston and New Orleans on New Year’s Eve. Turo, an online car rental platform, issued a statement Wednesday indicating there was nothing in Jabbar’s background that would show he was a threat.
FBI officials said that while traveling between Texas and New Orleans, Jabbar posted five videos to his Facebook in which he pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS). In the first video, Jabbar said that he initially planned to harm his family and friends. However, he was concerned that the news headlines would not focus on the war between “the believers and the disbelievers.”
The FBI confirmed Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, has been identified as the man who was shot and killed by police after the deadly New Year’s Day attack. (FBI/NewsNation illustration)
The FBI said video footage showed Jabbar placing two coolers, each of which contained an improvised explosive device (IED), along Bourbon Street sometime between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. Investigators initially reported that they had reviewed video footage of two men and a woman placing devices on the street. However, the agency said that those people were bystanders who stopped to look at the coolers before they walked away.
Still, investigators are still hoping to speak with anyone who knew Jabbar and who may have spent time with him in the 24 hours leading up to the attack.
Both of the devices located in the coolers were rendered safe, and reports of other devices that surfaced on Wednesday turned out to be misinformation, the FBI confirmed.
The FBI said that the videos were posted to Facebook beginning at 1:29 a.m. and 3:02 a.m.
The Bourbon Street attack begins
New Orleans police said officers responded to reports of a vehicle driving into a crowd on Bourbon Street at 3:17 a.m. Multiple people were struck before the vehicle crashed.
Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said that the driver, who was later identified as Jabbar, got out of the truck and began firing at police. Two officers were struck by gunfire and were hospitalized. Jabbar was shot and killed by police.
New Orleans Police said at a news conference Wednesday that Jabbar drove the rented truck up onto the sidewalk at Bourbon and Canal Streets, which were being blocked off by a police vehicle and officers. A bollard system, which had been installed in 2017 as part of a $40 million safety project, was being replaced at the time of the New Year’s Day attack.
“We had a car there, we had barriers there, we had officers there,” Kirkpatrick said. “And (Jabbar) got around it.
She added: “We did indeed have a plan, but the terrorist defeated it.”
Airbnb residents forced to evacuate
Residents at an Airbnb property located 1.5 miles from the scene of the attack were forced to evacuate around 8 a.m. on Wednesday after a fire broke out at the property.
Witnesses told NewsNation that they had seen a white truck parked in the driveway of the property but that no one reported seeing Jabbar.
A black flag with white lettering lies on the ground rolled up behind a pickup truck that a man drove into a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, killing and injuring a number of people, early Wednesday morning, Jan. 1, 2025. The FBI said they recovered an Islamic State group flag, which is black with white lettering, from the vehicle. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
The FBI said Thursday that the agency has secured that property and is conducting a search for potential evidence connected to the attack.
FBI turns over control of Bourbon Street to New Orleans
Cantrell said that the FBI returned control of Bourbon Street to the city late Wednesday night and that city crews began cleaning the street around 2 a.m. on Thursday. The cleaning process was completed by 8 a.m. to ensure that the street could be open as fans began to prepare for Thursday’s College Football Playoff quarterfinal game.
“I want to reassure the public that the city of New Orleans is not only ready for Game Day today, but we’re ready to continue to host large-scale events in our city because we are built to host at every single turn,” the mayor said.
Bourbon Street was set to reopen to pedestrian traffic around 2 p.m. Thursday but was opened ahead of schedule as football fans and visitors alike returned.
Landry said that although the memory of the 14 victims will live on, it would be a tragedy for their memory to be “snuffed out by fear.”
“The city will be back,” he said. “We’ll be open for family, friends and loved ones who want some time to relax from the pressures of life.”
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