Security Report From 2019 Warned New Orleans Officials About The Risk Of A Bourbon Street “Vehicular Ramming” Attack

Five years ago... New Orleans officials were warned all the way back in 2019 that Bourbon Street wasn't protected enough to prevent a "vehicular ramming" attack like the one we tragically saw on New Year's Day. The existence of the report became public days after 42-year old Shamsud Din Jabbar drove a Ford pickup truck into a crowd on Bourbon Street in the early morning hours of New Year's Day, going around a police cruiser that was blocking the entrance to the popular tourist strip, mowing down pedestrians before crashing into a construction lift. The terrorist then exited his vehicle and began shooting, injuring two police officers before being killed. The horrific incident left 14 people dead and dozens injured. In the wake of the attack, the FBI has revealed that Jabbar had an ISIS flag on his truck, and had posted several videos expressing his support for the radical Islamic group in the hours before his rampage. Police also discovered homemade explosive devices inside the truck, and located at least two others that had been placed nearby in the French Quarter. Of course the biggest question on everybody's mind is: How could this happen? This is far from the first ISIS-inspired vehicle attack we've seen. Back in 2016, a cargo truck was driven into a crowd in Nice, France back in 2016 and killed 86 innocent victims. In 2017, a terrorist killed 8 people in New York City after mowing down cyclists and runners along a bike back. And just a few days before Christmas in 2024, an alleged anti-Islam activist killed five people after driving into a crowded Christmas market in Germany. So it shouldn't have come as any surprise that a popular tourist destination like Bourbon Street would be a prime target for a similar attack. And in fact, a report prepared by a New York City security firm had warned New Orleans officials about just such a possibility. According to the New York Times, the confidential report was prepared in 2019 by Interfor International, and warned the city that the French Quarter was particularly vulnerable to a vehicle attack because bollards that were designed to prevent vehicles from entering Bourbon Street "did not appear to work." The bollards had originally been installed in 2017, but quickly malfunctioned at least in part due to debris like Mardi Gras beads that prevented them from sliding into place as designed. And this lack of bollards was something that the report pointed to as a problem that needed to be fixed to protect Bourbon Street from an attack: "The risk of terrorism - specifically mass shootings and vehicular attacks - remains highly possible while moderately probable. The two modes of terror attack most likely to be used are vehicular ramming and active shooting." The city is in the process of upgrading the old bollards ahead of the Super Bowl, which will take place at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans next month. But the replacements weren't installed prior to New Year's Eve, and the city instead had a police cruiser stationed at the intersection of Canal Street and Bourbon Street to prevent traffic from entering. Of course the bollards alone likely wouldn't have stopped the attacker, who drove onto the sidewalk to bypass the police cruiser. But after the attack, the city deployed sidewalk barricades (called archers) to block not only the street but the sidewalk from vehicles. And in a stunning interview, New Orleans Police Department chief Anne Kirkpatrick (who has been on the job since 2023) revealed that she had no idea the department even had the archers until after the attack. Obviously the existence of the warnings from 2019 raise a lot of questions as to how serious the city took the threat of a vehicular attack, and how they're going to address the risk going forward. But unfortunately, whatever they do will be too little, too late for the 14 innocent victims who lost their lives on New Year's Day.