Community protection of jubilant New Yr’s celebration turned to tragedy early this morning, with particular stories on mass casualties after a automobile touring at excessive velocity rammed into revelers alongside New Orleans‘ Bourbon Avenue.
Authorities stated that no less than 10 folks have been killed and greater than 30 folks have been injured. The suspect is now lifeless, the FBI stated. Authorities earlier stated that the suspect fired on officers.
Federal regulation enforcement is investigating the incident as “an act of terrorism,” in keeping with a press release from the FBI.
At about 3:15 a.m., a person drove a pickup truck down Bourbon Avenue at a “very quick tempo, and it was very intentional conduct,” stated New Orleans Police Division Supt. Ann Kirkpatrick. “This man was attempting to run over as many individuals as he presumably might. It was not a DUI scenario. That is extra advanced and extra critical primarily based on the knowledge we have now proper now.”
She stated that the motive force went round police barricades, and that he was “hellbent on creating the carnage and the injury that he did.”
The perpetrator fired on New Orleans officers “from his automobile when he crashed his automobile,” Kirkpatrick stated. Two officers have been shot and they’re in steady situation, she stated.
She stated that greater than 300 officers have been deployed within the space final night time.
President Joe Biden was briefed this morning on the information, and the White Home has been in contact with Cantrell to supply assist. The FBI will likely be taking up the investigation, Kirkpatrick stated.
There was some confusion earlier, as New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell described the incident as a “terrorist assault” to reporters, however Alethea Duncan, an assistant particular agent accountable for the FBI’s New Orleans discipline workplace, appeared to dismiss that declare.
The FBI stated it was investigating no less than one suspected improvised explosive gadget on the scene, Duncan stated.
The incident befell simply hours earlier than the beginning of the Sugar Bowl on the metropolis’s Superdome.
All the broadcast networks went to particular stories together with cable information protection, pushing lighter segments from morning reveals.
On NBC Information, a witness, Jimmy Cothran, described seeing eight our bodies that had been “mowed over,” as he and others have been in lockdown in a nightclub. One man had drained tracks throughout his again and abdomen.
The incident rapidly drew comparisons to a automobile assault on a Christmas market final month in Magdeburg, Germany. A suspect, a psychiatrist from Saudi Arabia with a historical past of anti-Islamic rhetoric, was arrested, however Germany’s inside minister stated this week that they can’t soar to conclusions as to a motive, in keeping with Reuters.
Extra to come back.
