It's the early hours of New Year's Day and a white pickup truck is stuck in traffic. The streets are busy with revelers in the French Quarter, the most famous tourist destination in New Orleans. The truck passes a police car and it suddenly turns right, plowing into people [00:00:19] in this security camera video. You can see how fast it's going and how escaping its path is just a matter of split second timing or luck. You just watched footage from a devastating terror attack that took place in New Orleans over New Year's Day. 14 people were killed [00:00:38] and 35 more were injured in this horrific attack in New Orleans. Amid New Year's celebrations now, there is still a lot to be learned about this attack. Authorities, of course, are investigating various aspects of this, including whether or not this individual acted alone and what the [00:00:57] real motive was behind the attack. But here is what we know so far. So the man who carried out the attack was identified as 42 year old Shamsuddin Jabbar, who is a US born citizen from Houston. Now he was also a veteran and we have some other interesting information about him. [00:01:17] So take a look at his mug shot or a photo of him, I should say. He served in the Army for more than a decade as a human resource specialist and information technology specialist. He was on active duty between March of 2007 and January of 2015, [00:01:33] and deployed to Afghanistan once, from February of 2009 to January of 2010. Now, after leaving active duty in January of 2015, Jabbar served as an Army reserve or part of the Army Reserve until July of 2020, and at that point he [00:01:50] left the service as a staff sergeant. Now, law enforcement has described the incident as a terror attack, and Jabbar has been killed after he crashed his truck, which he had rented. He emerged from the vehicle and then started to shoot [00:02:08] at law enforcement, and at that point, law enforcement shot and killed him. Now, while the FBI is still investigating whether others were involved in this attack so far, they believe that he acted alone. And we're also learning more about his possible motive. [00:02:25] Now, I mentioned that he is a US born citizen. Jabbar, though, drove from Houston to New Orleans on Tuesday evening and posted several videos online proclaiming his support for ISIS and mentioning [00:02:42] he joined ISIS before this summer. And that's according to Christopher Wray of the FBI. Now, in fact, his truck had an ISIS flag, but authorities still do not know if he was merely inspired by ISIS or if he was taking direction from ISIS members, [00:03:00] if he was working with ISIS members to carry out that attack. That is still being investigated, although so far from what authorities have learned, they do not believe he was acting, you know, with anyone else involved, but we'll see if anything else develops from that. Now, Jabar was hell bent on killing as many people as possible, driving [00:03:19] a pickup truck onto the sidewalk, around a parked police car serving as a barricade to plow into pedestrians, officials said. Jabar then exited the damaged vehicle and began shooting at authorities with his assault rifle. Police say that he was also in possession of a handgun, and two officers in that [00:03:39] shootout or in that incident were injured, one by gunfire and the other was actually pinned by the truck that Jabar used to carry out the attack. Now, the suspect drove a rented truck through crowds on Bourbon Street and was also caught on surveillance prior to doing that attack, essentially placing [00:03:59] or planting explosive devices in the area. Surveillance footage showed Jabar placing two improvised explosive devices in coolers in the Bourbon Street area. Quote. Those are the only two devices that we've been able to recover that were functional. [00:04:16] Both devices were rendered safe on scene, according to the FBI Deputy Assistant Director Christopher Wray. Now, the middle school and high school classmate of Jabbar's actually ended up speaking to CNN today about his religious influences, [00:04:35] his you know, how he became a little more radicalized in his faith. And I think it's important to hear from him. So again, this was a former classmate of Jabbar's from both middle school and high school. Take a look. Up until the last, you know, few times that I spoke with him, [00:04:51] he had become really, you know, enthralled in his faith and pretty much every conversation we had or post that he was, he was making at that time, in some way, shape or form, it all, you know, resorted back to his, his Muslim faith. Were you having, you know, respectful exchanges? [00:05:08] It was it was very respectful. And it wasn't anything like he was upset or mad at anybody. Every post and every conversation I ever had with him. He was never mad at anything. He never talked about Overthrowing the government or being mad at a particular race or religion or anything like that. [00:05:26] So while his classmate noticed that he'd become more religious, he didn't see any red flags or warning signs about it. But what I also think is really fascinating is we're learning about his past marriages, issues that he had with the law and issues that he had [00:05:42] with his own personal finances, and that could give us some signs in regard to what might have motivated his attack. So, before we get to that, though, let's just talk a little more about what, you know, CNN is reporting about Jabbar's online videos. [00:06:00] So he made reference in the videos to his divorce and how he had at first planned to gather his family for a celebration with the intention of killing them. But Jabbar said in the videos he changed his plans because he wanted [00:06:16] news headlines to focus on the war between believers and the disbelievers. Making reference to his support of ISIS, he stated that he had joined ISIS before the summer and Jabar had divorced twice, [00:06:31] according to court records, so his first wife sued him back in 2012 over child support. Soon after, he filed for divorce and the court ordered him to pay amounts that increased over the years as his income also increased. The case was then dismissed in 2022, but that was his first divorce. [00:06:48] He went through a second divorce in 2020, and at that point, a Texas judge granted Jabar second wife a restraining order against him during their divorce case. The order mandated Jabar to refrain from threats, physical harm, or other stipulated behavior against his ex-wife and either of their children, [00:07:07] and when it comes to his financial issues, he was in debt. And so, in a January 2022 email filed as part of his divorce case, he wrote that he could not afford a mortgage payment on his house, which he said was more than $27,000 past due and in danger of foreclosure if his [00:07:28] divorce settlement was further delayed, and he also stated in the email that a business that he had formed called Blue Meadow Properties, a real estate business, had lost money about $28,000 the prior year, and that other businesses he formed [00:07:44] weren't worth any money. He added that he had incurred about $16,000 in credit card debt. Now he also had some run ins with the law. You know, there's a one case back in 2000. It was like a petty theft case. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor as a result of that. [00:08:00] And then in 2025, he was arrested for driving under the influence. He had a blood alcohol level that was too high to be behind the wheel. But those are really the only other, you know, issues that he's had in his past. So it gives you a little sense of some of the trouble he had in the past. [00:08:19] I don't know how much of that motivated his decision to carry out a horrific and vicious terrorist attack on New Year's Day, 14 people have been killed as a result, 35 innocent people injured, and critics are also very furious at the [00:08:34] lack of safety precautions that were taken by authorities ahead of New Year's Day. Because think about it, this is Bourbon Street. You're going to have a ton of people celebrating, coming together, and so simply having police cars as barricades clearly wasn't enough. [00:08:50] And so there were a lot of questions about these so-called security bollards. And so those are essentially like these steel or metal, you know, little pillars, almost in order to barricade an area and prevent someone from causing [00:09:06] the kind of damage that Jabar did here. But the authorities claim that they are in the process of being replaced for next month's Super Bowl. And so that's the reason why they didn't have those security bollards up, [00:09:21] which I get wanting to have enhanced security for the Super Bowl, but maybe also have some enhanced security for a big celebratory event like New Year's Day on Bourbon Street. And so I'm sure we're going to be learning more about this story as it develops. [00:09:37] It's hard to have any, you know, strong, definitive commentary on it when we don't know all the details. We don't know what the motive was. And it's just so incredibly disgusting to know that someone would feel the need to rob dozens of other people of their health, of their safety, [00:09:56] of their lives because of whatever they're going through and these types of attacks, you know, whether it's with a firearm or with a vehicle, happens way too often. And again, I just feel I'm sad to say this, but I just feel [00:10:12] that whenever it comes to big events, whenever it comes to some day that people are coming together to celebrate, there needs to be precaution taken by the authorities. They need to make sure that there are no excuses when it comes to the barricades or the the bollards. [00:10:28] They need to make sure that they're doing everything they can to keep the public safe. And I don't feel like that happened in this instance. And, you know, we'll see what we learn more as this story develops. But that's all we know for now.