new orleans – Surveillance footage from Bourbon Street A video shared with Fox News Digital shows terror suspect Chams al-Din Jabbar speeding his Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck toward a crowd of New Year's revelers, who narrowly escaped the fast-moving vehicle, around 3:15 a.m. on Jan. 1. .
Authorities shot and killed Jabbar after he drove his car into the crowd, killing 14 people and opening fire on police, officials said. He described it as a terrorist attack.
“A 500-pound vehicle traveling at high speed in an urban area is absolutely devastating. And it's very clear that the trend is that this is becoming — this is a favorite tactic among terrorists globally, because we've recently seen a proliferation of these,” said Paul Mauro, a contributor to Fox News Channel and former NYPD inspector, for Fox News Digital.
Mauro added that police departments across the country have changed their standard operating procedures because “it is no longer enough to wait for the feds to fight terrorism.”
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Authorities patrol Bourbon Street as it reopens in New Orleans on Thursday. Several people were killed after a terrorist drove an electric pickup truck into a crowd of New Year's revelers early Thursday on Bourbon Street. (Kat Ramirez for Fox News Digital)
Mauro added that “electric cars in general are so quiet” that Jabbar may have made a conscious decision to rent an electric car for the purpose of surprising more victims.
A manager at Crystal, a fast-food restaurant on Bourbon Street, shared surveillance video with Fox Digital and said New Year's celebrations were going relatively smoothly in the French Quarter compared to previous years. He remembers that the visitors were having fun, but not overly agitated.
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Shams Al-Din Jabbar was seen walking near Bourbon Street in New Orleans in a surveillance video on December 31. (FBI)
Several business employees located near the Bourbon Street entrance told Fox News Digital that authorities installed temporary barriers to block traffic at entrances to certain streets in the French Quarter around Christmas time as the city planned to repair and upgrade its permanent barriers.
Barricades are seen on Bourbon Street after the street reopened in New Orleans on Thursday. (Kat Ramirez for Fox News Digital)
However, the barrier at the intersection of Canal and Bourbon Streets was not upright on New Year's Eve, meaning vehicles could have driven over the flat barrier and onto Bourbon Street from Canal Street. Video shows Jabbar driving the rented pickup truck off Canal Street and around the police car barricade at the Bourbon Street entrance before crashing into revelers.
“We have to accept the fact that they made mistakes.”
“The lesson is that even if you take preventive steps, you can't 100% secure a very large event, and we just have to accept that. Now, having said that… we have to accept the fact that they made mistakes,” he added. Mauro said. “You have to ask yourselves: If you have a New Year's Eve celebration in New Orleans — which I've actually been to, and it's a zoo, and it gets a lot of people — then you have the Sugar Bowl, then you have the Super Bowl, then you have Do you have Mardis Gras, who Made the decision to remove the barriers they had in order to get promoted?”
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Kevin Scott, a coal chef at Felix restaurant on Bourbon Street, told Fox News Digital that he was working on New Year's Eve before the attack and left shortly before Jabbar ran over revelers with his truck. Scott described the crowd as similar to one he might see at Mardi Gras.
The next day, he heard several eyewitness accounts from people who said that “bodies were everywhere” and people were “screaming and screaming and running for their lives.”
“It's a tragedy in New Orleans.”
“It's very different now coming to the French Quarter…it feels different,” Scott said, adding that he felt “very surprised” at the number of people back on Bourbon Street Thursday afternoon after officials reopened the area.
Kevin Scott, a coal chef at Felix restaurant on Bourbon Street, told Fox News Digital that he was working on New Year's Eve before the attack, and that he left shortly before the Jabbar family rammed his truck into a crowd of revelers. (Fox News Digital)
Scott broke down as he said his heart goes out to the families of the victims.
“I just hope we can all come together and be a better place and a better world,” he said.
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A man kneels at a memorial to those killed in the New Year's Day attack on Bourbon Street after the street reopens in New Orleans, Thursday. (Kat Ramirez for Fox News Digital)
FBI Deputy Assistant Director Christopher Raya He said Thursday that authorities believe Jabbar was motivated by ISIS and acted alone. Officials also found two explosive devices in two different locations in the French Quarter after the terrorist attack. They were placed in coolers.
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Before his rampage in New Orleans, Jabbar posted several videos on Facebook declaring his support In favor of the Islamic State (ISIS)The FBI said in a press conference on Thursday.
Shamsud Din Jabbar appears in an undated photo released by the FBI after he was attacked on Bourbon Street in New Orleans in a pickup truck and died in a shootout with officers. (FBI)
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“In the first video, Jabbar explains that he only planned to harm his family and friends, but was concerned that the headlines would not focus on the ‘war between believers and unbelievers,’” Raya said.
Fox News Digital's Christina Coulter and Luis Casiano contributed to this report.
