The elected officials in New Orleans are having to face down some harsh questions as to if the New Year's Day terror attack in the heart of the French Quarter could have been prevented.
Early Wednesday morning, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, drove a pickup truck into a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, killing 15 people and injuring dozens of others before being shot to death by police, according to authorities.
In 2016, the deadliest vehicle attack to date occurred when Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel killed 86 and injured 434 in Nice, France. In response, New Orleans installed steel columns known as bollards to restrict vehicle access to Bourbon Street.
The posts retracted to allow for deliveries to its bars and restaurants, until a few years ago when their tracks stopped working reliably. New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said the posts had been gummed up over the years by Mardi Gras beads, beer, and other debris.
When asked about where the Archer barriers came from, New Orleans Police Department chief Anne Kirkpatrick told reporters: "Actually, we have them. I didn't know about them, but we have them, and so we have been able now to put them out."
In a now viral video, Kirkpatrick later acknowledged the blockades were in storage and they were currently on the sidewalk.
In November 2019, a New York security firm did an assessment and recommended fixing the barriers immediately.
"The two modes of terror attack likely to be used are vehicular ramming and active shooting," the firm said.
Capt. LeJon Roberts, commander of the French Quarter police district, told The New York Times his team had no way of anticipating the attacker would jump up onto the Bourbon Street sidewalk, evading the police cruiser that was parked there as a security measure.
"It wasn't something that we expected to account for," Roberts said.
Other experts say city officials left the Bourbon Street vulnerable.
"This should be no surprise to anyone who's ever been tasked with protecting an area dense with pedestrian traffic," said Don Aviv, chief executive of the security firm Interfor International, which performed the 2019 security assessment. "The French Quarter is the perfect target."
City and state officials have pushed back against the charge that they could have performed better.
"This type of event can happen in any city, and that's the tragedy of it," Gov. Jeff Landry said Thursday.
"We did indeed have a plan, but the terrorist defeated," Kirpatrck said.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
James Morley III ✉
James Morley III is a writer with more than two decades of experience in entertainment, travel, technology, and science and nature.
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