New Orleans vehicle attack: death toll rises to 15, coroner says – latest updates

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Shamsud-Din Jabbar, who has been identified as the suspect in the New Orleans attack that killed at least 15 people, was having financial difficulties in recent years, according to a divorce records review by the Associated Press.

The documents suggested that Jabbar was $27,000 behind on house payments and that he was trying to quickly finalize his divorce, the AP reported. In a January 2022 email to the attorney of his ex-wife, he wrote: “I have exhausted all means of bringing the loan current other than a loan modification, leaving us no alternative but to sell the house or allow it to go into foreclosure.”

He also had struggling businesses. Blue Meadow Properties LLC, that lost roughly $28,000 over the previous year, and two others he started – Jabbar Real Estate Holdings LLC and BDQ L3C – had no value, according to the AP.

His divorce was finalized in September 2024.

The FBI said Jabbar shot at police before officers shot him dead after his vehicle attack into a crowd on New Year’s Day.

The New Orleans attack, which officials are investigating as an act of terrorism, appears to be the deadliest mass attack in the US in more than a year, according to the New York Times.

Officials say at least 15 people were killed and more than 30 injured after a vehicle flying an Islamic State (IS) flag drove into a crowd in the early hours of New Year’s Day.

In October 2023, a 40-year-old gunman in Maine killed 18 people at a bowling alley and a bar. That shooter died by suicide and was later found to have evidence of traumatic brain injuries.

More details are emerging about the suspect in the New Orleans attack.

An army spokesperson said Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, served in both an active duty and reserve capacity. He joined the army in 2006, and was deployed in 2009 to Afghanistan, where he worked as an administrative clerk.

In 2015 he joined the army reserve, and was honorably discharged as a staff sergeant in July 2020. He also worked in information technology.

He was charged with two minor infractions, for a misdemeanor theft offense in 2002, and driving with an invalid license in 2005. On Wednesday, the FBI released an undated, low resolution mugshot of Jabbar. It is not known if it is related to either of these two charges.

Shamsud-Din Jabbar. Photograph: FBI/Reuters

CNN reported on Wednesday that investigators are looking at a series of video recordings that Jabbar reportedly made prior to Wednesday’s attack, in which he was killed in a shootout with police.

The network said the recordings appeared to have been made while driving at night, and although the suspect is not visible, authorities believe the recordings were made as he drove from Texas to Louisiana, although the exact timing is not yet clear.

According to CNN, the recordings reference his divorce and how he had at first planned to gather his family for a “celebration” with the intention of killing them, two officials who had been briefed on the material in the recordings said.

The suspect also talked about how he changed his plans and said that he joined the Islamic State. According to the FBI, an IS flag was attached to the vehicle he used in the attack.

Here are some images from New Orleans, Louisiana, and Houston, Texas, in the aftermath of the New Year’s Day vehicle attack, sent to us over the news wires:

Bourbon Street in daylight, hours after the early-morning vehicle attack that killed at least 15 people and injured dozens. Photograph: Shawn Fink/EPA

Police officers with a canine investigate a house in New Orleans’s Seventh Ward in the aftermath of the attack. Photograph: Shawn Fink/EPA

A man on his knees prays near New Orleans’s French Quarter, where at least 15 people were killed in a vehicle attack early on New Year’s Day. Photograph: Octavio Jones/Reuters

Members of the FBI walk around Bourbon Street as they investigate the vehicle attack the bureau has called ‘an act of terrorism’. Photograph: Matthew Hinton/AP

A Harris county sheriff’s deputy clears media from outside a residence in Houston, Texas, where Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the suspect in the New Orleans attack, is believed to have lived. Photograph: David J Phillip/AP

CNN is reporting that authorities appear to be backtracking from earlier, albeit unofficial assertions that three men and one woman were reportedly captured on surveillance video placing improvised explosive devices in New Orleans.

Law enforcement sources told the network earlier on Wednesday that investigators had reviewed footage purportedly showing the four individuals they believed at the time were involved in placing devices in the French Quarter.

The Associated Press also reported it had obtained an intelligence bulletin from Louisiana state police making the same claim.

However, while federal investigators are still trying to determine if other people were involved in assisting the suspect, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, plan or execute the New Year’s Day attack, they no longer believe the people reportedly seen in the video were involved, CNN said.

New Orleans attack death toll rises to 15

The New Orleans parish coroner, Dr Dwight McKenna, has said the death toll from the New Year’s Day vehicle attack in the city’s French Quarter has risen to at least 15.

An official statement just released by the coroner’s office says:

We are deeply saddened by the tragic events that unfolded in the French Quarter. Our thoughts and heartfelt condolences are with the victims, their families, and everyone affected.

As of now, 15 people are deceased. It will take several days to perform all autopsies. Once we complete the autopsies and talk with the next of kin, we will release the identifications of the victims.

As we work diligently in coordination with the New Orleans Police Department, FBI, and Homeland Security, we remain committed to supporting the community during this tragic time in our city.

Officials have yet to confirm the identify of any of the victims, but family members have named at least four of the at least 15 who were killed.

Local media in New Orleans identified Nikyra Cheyenne Dedeaux, 18, who had traveled to New Orleans from nearby Gulfport, Mississippi, with a cousin and a friend; Reggie Hunter, a 37-year-old father of two from Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Tiger Bech, a 27-year-old Lafayette, Louisiana, native and former football player.

A fourth victim was named as Nicole Perez, a 28-year-old mother and delicatessen manager from Metairie, Louisiana, who was celebrating the new year with friends.

College football officials have posted official confirmation that the Allstate Sugar Bowl, which this year doubles as the national championship quarter-final between Notre Dame and the University of Georgia, will kick-off at 3pm CT at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans.

The game was originally scheduled to have taken place on Wednesday afternoon, but was postponed for 24 hours in the wake of the New Year’s Day vehicle attack in the city’s French Quarter that killed at least 10 people and injured dozens more.

The Associated Press has been looking into why an anti-terrorism security system designed to temporarily prevent vehicles driving through New Orleans’s French Quarter was not in operation at the time of this morning’s attack.

It found that many of the adjustable barriers at intersections in the Quarter, stainless-steel columns known as bollards, were absent because they were in the process of being replaced during a rolling maintenance program that began in November and was scheduled to be completed before the Super Bowl in the city on 9 February.

Instead, in busy times for pedestrians such as the New Year’s Day celebrations, police cruisers were positioned at entrances to the Quarter. Surveillance footage posted to X on Wednesday showed what is believed to be the suspect’s pickup truck driving past one of the police vehicles and accelerating along Bourbon Street before plowing into the crowd.

City officials have not confirmed whether the intersection at which the suspect entered the Quarter was actively under construction, or if the replacement project created a vulnerability, the AP said.

FBI seals off Houston property 'related to New Orleans attack'

FBI agents in Texas, working with deputies from the Harris county sheriff’s office, have sealed off a house in Houston linked to the investigation into the vehicle attack in New Orleans.

The bureau’s Houston field office said in a post on X that agents and “specialized teams” would be at the property in the north of the city for several hours, and urged the public to keep away.

“This activity is related to this morning’s New Orleans attack, but due to the ongoing nature of the investigation, no further information can be provided,” the post said.

At a media briefing on Wednesday afternoon, authorities said Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the 42-year-old suspect in the attack that killed at least 10, was a US citizen who lived in Texas, and was believed to have rented the pickup truck used in the attack in the state.

The New York Times on Wednesday published an interview with a man married to Jabbar’s ex-wife, who claimed Jabbar, a US army veteran, had recently converted to Islam.

Jabbar’s erratic behavior, Dwayne March told the newspaper, led to his wife banning contact between Jabbar and the children they shared, daughters aged 15 and 20.

According to the Times, Jabbar was previously charged with minor infractions, misdemeanor theft in 2002, and driving with an invalid license three years later.

The Guardian’s southern bureau chief Oliver Laughland is in New Orleans, and has been speaking with those caught up in the chaos of the New Year’s Day vehicle attack in the French Quarter:

The silence on Bourbon Street told much of the story.

At the intersection that marks the centre of New Orleans’s noisy tourist hub, lined with tall palm trees and towering hotels, the quiet on the morning of New Year’s Day was broken only by yellow police tape fluttering in the light breeze and the occasional blare of sirens echoing on the road.

Just a few hours earlier the road had been lined with hundreds of revellers from across the country, young and old, celebrating the new year when around 3am the crowd was targeted in a suspected act of terrorism. A vehicle had plowed into the throngs and a gunman exchanged fire with police, leaving at least 10 people dead and dozens injured. Bleary-eyed witnesses said they had heard the loud popping of gunshots, screams of terror and bodies on the ground.

The St Louis Cathedral on Orleans Street in New Orleans’s French Quarter, where a suspicious package was detonated early Wednesday following the vehicle attack that killed at least 10. Photograph: Matthew Hinton/AP

As the sun rose on New Year’s Day, 28-year-old Casey Kirsch stood at the crime scene perimeter hoping to retrieve his father-in-law’s wheelchair, which had been left behind in the chaotic aftermath. Kirsch had come to New Orleans from Pittsburgh to celebrate the new year with his family, but instead spent the early hours of 2025 frantically trying to ascertain his father-in-law, Jeremi’s, whereabouts.

“We couldn’t get a hold of him and started calling the hospitals,” Kirsch recalled.

They eventually found out he had been injured in the attack and was probably in need of surgery. The magnitude of it all had hardly settled.

Read the full story:

Surveillance footage has been posted to X of what is reported to be the suspect’s white pickup truck passing a parked police cruiser positioned to block vehicular access to New Orleans’s French Quarter, and accelerating along Bourbon Street where it plowed into revelers celebrating New Year.

The 45-second clip was obtained and posted by journalist Brian Entin. It is timestamped 3.16am Wednesday, the time authorities said 42-year old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a US citizen who is believed to have rented the vehicle in Texas, drove into the crowd, killing at least 10 people and injuring 35.

Here’s a clip from a media briefing held on Wednesday afternoon by the FBI and other agencies investigating the New Year’s Day vehicle attack in New Orleans that killed at least 10 people, and injured dozens more.

FBI assistant special agent in charge Alethea Duncan called the attack “an act of terrorism”, and stated an Isis (Islamic State) flag was attached to the suspect’s vehicle.

Surveillance video shows multiple people 'placing explosive device': report

The Associated Press says it has obtained an intelligence bulletin from Louisiana state police that says several “potential explosive devices” were found in New Orleans’s’ French Quarter following the vehicle attack early Wednesday, and that surveillance footage had “captured three men and a woman placing one of multiple improvised explosive devices”.

There was no immediate confirmation from the state police department.

According to the bulletin, the AP says, guns and pipe bombs found in the suspect’s pick-up truck were found concealed within coolers and “wired for remote detonation”. A corresponding remote control was also discovered, it said.

The suspect’s white pick-up truck used in the New Orleans vehicle attack contained explosive devices hidden inside coolers, the Associated Press reported, citing an intelligence bulletin from Louisiana state police. Photograph: Gerald Herbert/AP

At a media briefing on Wednesday afternoon, Alethea Duncan, the FBI’s assistant special agent in charge of the bureau’s New Orleans office, said investigators believed that the suspect, 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, had not acted alone.

The FBI was treating the incident as “an act of terrorism”, and said a black Isis (Islamic State) flag was attached to the vehicle.

Officials said Jabbar drove onto a sidewalk and went around a police car that was positioned to block vehicular traffic from Bourbon Street revelers.

Authorities said a barrier system designed to prevent vehicle attacks was undergoing repairs in preparation for the Super Bowl, which is being played in the city in February.

Report: families identify vehicle attack victims

A father of two from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was named by his family as one of at least 10 victims killed in the New Orleans vehicle attack, nola.com is reporting.

Reggie Hunter, 37, finished work on New Year’s Eve and decided to head to Bourbon Street “on a whim” to celebrate the new year with a cousin, Shirell Jackson, who identified herself as Hunter’s first cousin, told the outlet.

Jackson said the cousin was also struck by the vehicle and is among at least 35 people who were injured.

Earlier Wednesday, an 18-year-old student, Nikyra Cheyenne Dedeaux, from Gulfport, Mississippi, was named by her family as another of those killed. Her mother told nola.com that her daughter was celebrating new year with her cousin and a friend.

The president of the University of Georgia said it had learned one its students was injured, while Gideon Sa’ar, Israel’s minister of foreign affairs, said in a post to X that two Israeli citizens were hurt.

Authorities have yet to confirm the identities of any of the victims.

The Republican Louisiana governor Jeff Landry said at the press conference he had already planned to make an emergency declaration on Thursday because of upcoming large public events in the city. He said it would convene a range of authorities to discuss safety planning for the Mardi Gras carnival season, and the Super Bowl at the New Orleans Caesars Superdome on 9 February:

Because of the events today, I have amended that emergency declaration and issued it today. [It] will allow our federal, state and local partners to bring all of the resources necessary to get this city safe.

It is important for our citizens and guests of this state to know that we are doing everything we can to secure their safety in this city. We want to make it clear the Superdome and the surrounding area is safe, but I’ve always said that the safety of this entire city is something that is always paramount to me.

Landry said he had also mobilized a military police company comprising about 100 members of Louisiana’s national guard to assist agencies investigating the New Year’s Day attack.

Kamala Harris, the vice-president, has posted condolences to the victims of the New Year’s Day vehicle attack in New Orleans to X, calling the episode “reprehensible and unacceptable”:

Last night should have been a joyous celebration of the new year. Instead, a horrific incident occurred that left the New Orleans community mourning.

My thoughts are with the victims of this tragedy and their families. President Biden and I will continue to be briefed on this investigation, and our team remains in close contact with local officials. Any attack on any of our communities is reprehensible and unacceptable.

Here's a summary of what we know so far about the New Orleans New Year's Day vehicle attack:

• 10 people were killed and at least 35 have been injured, 2 of which are police officers, after a pick-up truck plowed through New Orleans’s French Quarter on New Year’s Day.

• The suspect who drove the white Ford truck into a crowd on New Orleans’s famous Bourbon Street early morning on Wednesday has been named as 42 year old Shamsud-Din Jabbar. Jabbar is a US citizen and Texas resident, who allegedly drove a rental car into Louisiana to carry out the attack. Jabbar was shot dead by police after a gunfire exchange.

• The FBI says it does not believe Jabbar is solely responsible for the attack.

• Four explosive devices and a long gun were found in the vehicle that drove into the crowd. Jabbar’s Airbnb rental is being swept in case there are more.

• The FBI is treating the attack as an act of terrorism. A black ISIS flag was flown from Jabbar’s truck.

• The Allstate Sugar Bowl football game between the University of Georgia and Notre Dame scheduled for this evening at the nearby Superdome has been postponed in light of the vehicle attack.

US senator John Neely Kennedy, who is from Louisiana, promised at the podium that “you will find out what happened and who was responsible, or I will raise fresh hell and chase those in the federal government who are responsible for telling us what happened, like they stole Christmas.”