The FBI has released new details about the investigation into the deadly attack on New Orleans’ famed Bourbon Street.
NEW ORLEANS — At least ten people have been killed and 35 were injured after a man in a pickup truck, “hell-bent” on creating carnage, intentionally drove into a crowd in the bustling French Quarter district of New Orleans, according to authorities.
The deadly attack, which is being investigated as an act of terrorism, happened on New Orleans’ famed Canal and Bourbon Street within hours of the start of 2025.
The suspect has been identified as 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a U.S. citizen from Texas, the FBI announced in a statement.
Federal investigators said he was driving a Ford pickup truck, which appears to have been rented. An ISIS flag was located in the vehicle and the FBI said the agency is working to determine the subject’s potential associations and affiliations with terrorist organization
Jabbar was killed in a firefight with police following the attack around 3:15 a.m. Wednesday along Bourbon Street in the city’s bustling French Quarter, the FBI said.
New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said the suspect went around barricades and was trying to run over as many people as he possibly could on Bourbon Street.
“He was hell-bent on creating the carnage and damage that he did,” Kirkpatrick declared at a Wednesday morning press conference. She added that it seems the majority of the victims are locals and not tourists visiting the city, though they are working to confirm that.
Kirkpatrick said the driver of the pickup truck also fired a gun at officers after he crashed, striking two of them.
In a statement, the New Orleans Police Department later confirmed officers returned gunfire and the suspect was struck and declared dead at the scene.
The FBI, which has taken over the investigation as the lead agency, said the mass casualty incident is being investigated as “an act of terrorism.”
The incident happened at approximately 3:15 a.m. toward the end of New Year’s celebrations in New Orleans and hours before the kickoff of the Allstate Sugar Bowl, a college football playoff quarterfinal held in the city’s Caesars Superdome, with thousands of Georgia and Notre Dame fans expected to be in attendance.
Authorities urging everyone to avoid eight blocks of Bourbon Street as they investigate.
Alethea Duncan, an assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s New Orleans field office, said officials were investigating the discovery of at least one suspected improvised explosive device at the scene.
“A horrific act of violence took place on Bourbon Street earlier this morning,” Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry posted on X. “Please join Sharon and I in praying for all the victims and first responders on scene. I urge all near the scene to avoid the area.”
The New Orleans Police Department is expected to hold more press conferences at 11 a.m. Central and 3 p.m. Central.
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.
The Associated Press and WWL contributed to this report.