Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.
Federal authorities said a Texas man was behind the wheel of a pickup truck that plowed into a crowd of New Year’s revelers in New Orleans’ French Quarter early Wednesday, killing at least 15 people and injuring dozens more.
The FBI identified the suspect as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old U.S. citizen and Army veteran who lived in north Houston, public records show. After ramming into the crowd, Jabbar crashed the truck and opened fire on police, injuring two officers before he was fatally shot by law enforcement, FBI officials said.
Inside Jabbar’s truck — a Ford pickup that “appears to have been rented” — was an Islamic State flag, weapons and a potential improvised explosive device, according to an FBI statement. The agency said it is investigating the slaughter as “an act of terrorism” and looking into how Jabbar gained possession of the vehicle. An FBI official said the agency believes Jabbar may have been working with accomplices, though none had been identified by Wednesday afternoon.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick confirmed that Jabbar “has been living in the Houston area.” In a statement, the FBI’s Houston office said it was “conducting law enforcement activity” with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office near the intersection of Hugh Road and Crescent Peak Drive, the north Houston intersection where Jabbar’s most recent known address was located.
“This activity is related to this morning’s New Orleans attack, but due to the ongoing nature of the investigation, no further information can be provided,” the FBI statement read, noting that officials had secured the area and would be on site for several hours.
New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said the act was intentional. Jabbar sped down Bourbon Street “at a very fast pace” and was “trying to run over as many people as he could,” the police chief said, calling Jabbar “hell-bent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did.”
The city was set to host the Sugar Bowl — a college football playoff quarterfinal matchup between Georgia and Notre Dame — later Wednesday evening. The game was postponed until Thursday.
Gov. Greg Abbott said he had been briefed by Texas Department of Public Safety officials and was working with law enforcement “at every level to ensure we know exactly what happened,” with “a special focus to ensure no one in Texas faces any safety threat.”
The most important Texas news,
sent weekday mornings.
Some Texas officials seized on the incident to call for tighter immigration controls, after Fox News reported that the truck used in the attack had recently entered the country at the southern border. The network later retracted the report, saying the truck entered the country in November — earlier than first reported — and was driven by someone who “does not appear to be the shooter.” Patrick, who is acting governor with Abbott out of the state, said Jabbar rented the truck on Dec. 30.
But before Fox’s update, the narrative was promoted by conservative social media influencers and some Texas lawmakers. Texans for Strong Borders, a group that has pushed lawmakers to adopt hardline border policies, posted on social media that, “if it turn[s] out to be the case that this was an ISIS ramming attack in which the suspect crossed the U.S.-Mexico border,” it would be “EXACTLY the nightmare scenario border security experts have been warning about for years.”
State Rep. Nate Schatzline, R-Fort Worth, shared the post along with his own addendum: “WE MUST SECURE THE TEXAS BORDER NOW!” Texans for Strong Borders later shared an update acknowledging that Jabbar lived in Texas.
