A terrorist who killed at least 10 people and injured 30 others after plowing a vehicle into a crowd celebrating New Year on New Orleans’ Bourbon Street has been killed, sources say.
The driver rammed into the large group at high speed, then got out and started firing a weapon, witnesses said. Investigators later added that they found what appeared to be improvised explosives at the crash site that did not detonate.
A shootout between police and the suspect ensued, and two officers were shot by the suspect and are in stable condition.
Police sources later told the New York Times that the suspect was deceased following the shootout. No information about the suspect’s identity has been released.
Witnesses claim the suspect was ‘wearing full body armor’ and ‘armed with an assault rifle’, and officials said he was ‘trying to run over as many people as he possibly could’.
Videos circulating on social media showed a chaotic scene at the tourist hotspot as people ran from the casualty-strewn area while bullets rang out in the background.
Dozens of police officers have responded to what authorities have declared a ‘mass casualty event’ and a portion of the road has been cordoned off. Paramedics, ambulances and vehicles from the coroner’s office were also seen at the scene.
Ambulances have transported the wounded to five area hospitals, the city added, and the FBI have taken over the ongoing investigation.
The horror unfolded at around 3:15am local time Wednesday when the vehicle, which appeared to be a Ford SUV, plowed into the crowd at the intersection of Bourbon Street and Canal Street.
Surveillance footage captured the moment police stationed on the street for the New Year’s celebrations were urgently called to the scene, as around a dozen officers sprang into action and raced through crowds to respond.
A man, who claimed to witness the incident while out with his wife, wrote on X that he saw the SUV ‘speeding’ down the road and ‘running people over’.
Another alleged witness told WLWT that she saw the vehicle strike the crowd and multiple officers open fire at the suspect. She says she started running and only escaped ‘by the grace of god’.
Kevin Garcia, 22, said the car was ‘slamming into everyone on the left side of Bourbon sidewalk’. He heard gunshots ring out and claims a ‘body came flying at me’, CNN reported.
Whit Davis, a 22-year-old witness from Shreveport, Louisiana, said he was in a nightclub when the attack unfolded. He recalled how people ‘started running and hiding under tables’ in a scene that resembled ‘an active shooter drill’.
Police then held him and a group of partygoers in the bar, Davis told BBC, noting that when they were finally allowed to leave the establishment that they ‘were walking past dead and injured bodies all over the street’.
At a press conference, New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell described the incident as a ‘terrorist attack’, which prompted the FBI to say shortly later that the bureau was not treating it as a terrorist attack.
