Network coverage of jubilant New Year’s celebration turned to tragedy early this morning, with special reports on mass casualties after a car rammed into revelers along Bourbon Street.
Authorities said that 10 people were killed and more than 30 people were injured.
At about 3:15 a.m. ET, a man drove a pickup truck down Bourbon Street at a “very fast pace, and it was very intentional behavior,” said New Orleans Police Department Supt. Ann Kirkpatrick. “This man was trying to run over as many people as he possibly could. It was not a DUI situation. This is more complex and more serious based on the information we have right now.”
She said that the driver went around police barricades, and that he was “hellbent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did.”
The perpetrator fired on New Orleans officers “from his vehicle when he crashed his vehicle,” Kirkpatrick said. Two officers were shot and they are in stable condition, she said.
NBC News, quoting an unnamed law enforcement official, reported that the suspect is believed to be dead.
She said that more than 300 officers were deployed in the area last night.
Mayor LaToya Cantrell described the incident as a “terrorist attack,” but Aletha Duncan, the assistant special agent in charge of the FBI, later told reporters that “this is not a terrorist event.”
President Joe Biden was briefed this morning on the news, and the White House has been in touch with Cantrell to offer support. The FBI will be taking over the investigation, Kirkpatrick said.
The FBI said it was investigating at least one suspected improvised explosive device at the scene, Duncan said.
The incident took place just hours before the start of the Sugar Bowl at the city’s Superdome.
All of the broadcast networks went to special reports along with cable news coverage, pushing lighter segments from morning shows.
More to come.
