NEW ORLEANS – Surveillance footage from Bourbon Street shared with Fox News Digital shows terror suspect Shamsud-Din Jabbar speeding his electric Ford F-150 Lightning pickup truck toward a crowd of New Year's revelers, who narrowly escapes the fast-moving vehicle, around 3:15 a.m. on Jan. 1.
Authorities fatally shot Jabbar after he drove his vehicle through the crowd, killing 14 people and opening fire on police in what officials described as a terrorist attack.
"A 500-pound vehicle going at a high rate of speed in an urban area is utterly devastating. And it's very clear the trend is that this is becoming — this tactic of choice among terrorists globally, because recently we've seen a proliferation of these," Paul Mauro, Fox News contributor and former NYPD inspector, told Fox News Digital.
Mauro added that police departments across the nation have shifted their standard operating procedures because "it's no longer enough to wait for the feds to do their counterterrorism."
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Mauro added that "electric vehicles in general are so quiet" that Jabbar may have made the conscious decision to rent an electric vehicle for the purpose of taking more victims by surprise.
A manager at Krystal, a fast-food restaurant on Bourbon Street, shared the surveillance video with Fox Digital, and said New Year's celebrations had been going relatively smoothly in the French Quarter compared to prior years. Visitors were having fun, but not being overly rambunctious, he recalled.
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Multiple business employees located near the entrance of Bourbon Street told Fox News Digital that authorities installed temporary barriers to block traffic at certain street entrances in the French Quarter around Christmastime as the city planned to repair and upgrade its permanent barriers.
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However, the barrier situated at the intersection of Canal and Bourbon streets was not upright on New Year's Eve, meaning vehicles could drive over the flattened barricade and onto Bourbon Street from Canal Street. A video shows Jabbar driving the rented pickup truck off Canal Street and around a police vehicle blockade at the entrance of Bourbon Street before plowing into revelers.
"The lesson is, even if you take prophylactic steps, you can't secure a very large event 100%, and we just have to accept that. Now, that said … we do have to accept the fact that they made mistakes," Mauro said. "You have to ask yourselves: If you have New Orleans New Year's — which I actually have been to, and it is a zoo, you get tons of people — then you have the Sugar Bowl, then you have the Super Bowl, then you have Mardis Gras, who made the decision to decide to remove the barriers that they had for upgrading?"
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Kevin Scott, a charcoal chef at the Bourbon Street restaurant Felix's, told Fox News Digital that he was working on New Year's Eve before the attack and left shortly before Jabbar drove his truck into revelers. Scott described the crowd as similar to the crowd he might see on Mardi Gras.
The next day, he heard several eyewitness accounts from people who said "bodies were everywhere" and people were "screaming and hollering and just running for their lives."
"Coming into the French Quarter, it's very different now. … It feels different," Scott said, adding that he feels "very surprised" with the number of people who were back on Bourbon Street on Thursday afternoon after officials reopened the area.
Scott broke down while saying his heart goes out to the families of the victims.
"I'm just wishing we can all come together and just…be a better place, a better world," he said.
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FBI Deputy Assistant Director Christopher Raia said Thursday that authorities believe Jabbar was motivated by ISIS and acted alone. Officials also located two improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in 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 for the Islamic State (ISIS), the FBI said at a news conference Thursday.
"In the first video, Jabbar explains he only planned to harm his family and friends, but was concerned the news headlines would not focus on the 'war between the believers and the disbelievers,'" Raia said.
Fox News Digital's Christina Coulter and Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
