Feds Find Sulfuric Acid in Storage Linked to NOLA Attacker

FBI investigators found a cooler filled with bottles of commercially available sulfuric acid in a Texas storage unit rented by New Orleans attack suspect Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the agency said on Tuesday.

WWL reported that the discovery was made during a Monday night search of the SpareBox Storage facility located in the 11900 block of Walters Road in Houston.

FBI Houston and the Harris County Sheriff's Office concluded their search activity around midnight and said in a statement that there is no threat to safety.

"There was, and is, no threat to public safety at this time in relation to that activity," the statement read.

The storage unit is approximately a mile from Jabbar's home.

Sulfuric acid is a colorless, highly corrosive chemical that is widely used in the manufacturing, agriculture, and pharmaceuticals industries.

Click2Houston reported that the bottles of sulfuric acid were purchased at a local hardware store.

Customers at the storage facility told KHOU on Tuesday that they were aware of the deadly New Orleans attack but never thought that Jabbar's trail would lead investigators to Houston.

"You wouldn't believe that so close to home that this could be going on, like, I feel like who knows what's in here now, you know?" customer Earnest Washington said. "It's a good storage unit, but you never see anyone here — so that's maybe why he chose that spot because he sees that it's a real quiet storage."

Up until he launched his ISIS-inspired attack on New Year's Day by plowing a truck into crowds of revelers on Bourbon Street, Jabbar was a Harris County resident, living in Houston. He was killed in a shootout with police after killing 14 people and injuring at least 30 others.

The FBI previously said that Jabbar was spotted on surveillance camera footage planting improvised explosive devices inside of coolers throughout New Orleans' famed French Quarter before carrying out the vehicle attack. He had reportedly been planning to detonate the devices with a radio-controlled receiver.

ABC News reported that Joshua Jackson, the special agent in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives field office in New Orleans, said the homemade explosives failed to detonate because Jabbar was shot to death before he could set them off or because he used the wrong mechanism for detonation.

"He didn't use the right or correct device to set it off, and that is just indicative of his inexperience and lack of understanding how that material might be set off," Jackson said.

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