NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Ten people were killed and 30 were injured when a vehicle drove into a crowd on New Orleans' famed Canal and Bourbon Street in the first hours of New Year's Day, according to NOLA Ready, the city’s emergency preparedness agency.
New Orleans police earlier said they were responding to a mass casualty incident on Wednesday that included fatalities. NOLA Ready advised people to stay away from the area.
It said the injured had been taken to five local hospitals.
Later Wednesday, the FBI confirmed that it had identified the driver as 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar.
Investigators are working to gather additional information about Jabbar’s background and investigating an Islamic State flag that was with the vehicle, the FBI said.
Now, the Sugar Bowl has been postponed. AllState Sugar Bowl CEO Jeff Hundley says the College Football Playoff quarterfinal game between Georgia and Notre Dame will be held Thursday. It had been scheduled for Wednesday evening at the Superdome in New Orleans.
Hundley says the decision was made in the interest of public safety.
New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell called the incident a “terrorist attack” during a press conference on Wednesday. But Alethea Duncan, an assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s New Orleans field office, said at the same conference that this was “not a terrorist attack.”
Duncan, however, said officials were investigating what appeared to be at least one improvised explosive device.
The news conference ended before authorities could reconcile the two characterizations.
New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick also stated that the incident was intentional.
“He was hell-bent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did,” Kirkpatrick said. “It was very intentional behavior. This man was trying to run over as many people as he could.”
Preliminary investigations revealed that the driver drove around the barricades to conduct the act, said Kirkpatrick.
The incident came toward the end of New Year’s celebrations in New Orleans and hours before the kickoff of the AllState Bowl, a college football quarterfinal held in the city's Caesars Superdome, with thousands expected to be in attendance.
This story comprises reporting from Nexstar Media Wire.
