New Orleans authorities on Wednesday announced 10 deaths and 30 injuries after “a mass casualty incident involving a vehicle that drove into a large crowd on Canal and Bourbon Street.”
“There are 30 injured patients that have been transported by [New Orleans Emergency Medical Services] and 10 fatalities,” the city’s public alert system announced.
The FBI is investigating the incident as an act of terrorism.
New Orleans City Councilman Oliver Thomas said the suspected perpetrator has been killed.
“As we search for a motive, remember there is no making sense of evil,” he said.
2 police officers shot, wounded
Mayor LaToya Cantrell told reporters she had been in touch with the White House. She also described the case as a “terrorist attack,” but an FBI investigator later appeared to contradict this.
US President Joe Biden called the New Orleans mayor to offer “full federal support” after the attack, which the White House called “horrific.”
New Orleans Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick said the suspect had shot at police officers with a firearm from his vehicle, a pick-up truck, wounding two of them.
“Two of our officers have been shot. They are stable, and we will give you an update on them,” she said.
She said “we do not want anyone on Bourbon Street today.”
Kirkpatrick also said the FBI would be taking over the investigation “because of the nature and indices that we have on the scene.”
FBI Special Agent Althea Duncan said that “improvised explosive devices” had been found on the scene, and that investigators were trying to establish if they were “viable.”
Attack in vibrant heart of French Quarter
The incident took place on Bourbon Street at around 3:15 a.m. local time This is a popular tourist and social hotspot in the French Quarter of the city of roughly 360,000 people in the southern state of Louisiana.
Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry decried the “horrific act of violence” and invited others to join him and his wife in prayers for those affected. Like police, he asked all in the vicinity to avoid the area.
Shortly before Christmas, an attack using a car at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, killed five people and injured more than 200, drawing international attention.
msh, ftm/sms (AFP, AP, Reuters)
