New Orleans, US (DT) – Ten people were killed and 35 injured after the driver of a pickup truck struck a crowd on historic Bourbon Street in New Orleans early Wednesday, officials said.
After driving at high speed into the crowd of pedestrians, the suspect was killed in a firefight with police, the FBI said on Facebook.
“The FBI is the lead investigative agency, and we are working with our partners to investigate this as an act of terrorism,” the federal agency said.
The driver 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.
Investigators were combing the French Quarter for potential explosive devices, a law enforcement official told the Associated Press. The official was not authorized to discuss details of the investigation publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
Security personnel gather at the scene on Bourbon Street after a vehicle drove into a crowd on New Orleans’ Canal and Bourbon Street, Wednesday Jan. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) Superintendent of Police for the New Orleans Police Department Anne Kirkpatrick makes a statement after a vehicle drove into a crowd on New Orleans’ Canal and Bourbon Street, Wednesday Jan. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Alethea Duncan said officials were investigating at least one suspected improvised explosive device at the scene.
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.
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.
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