45 points

What are the odds this murderer is a big fan of Elon Musk like the guy in Germany?

Also:

adding the driver had not been taken into custody.

What does this mean? They’re at large? They were found not at fault and were let go? The cops told them, “get out of here, you scamp!” What?

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8 points

It means either they haven’t been found or there’s nobody looking.

My take from the article is that they lack manpower, so I’m leaning towards the latter.

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8 points

According to some of the news I just saw, they said the driver is dead.

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8 points

WWLTV (local New Orleans TV station) just said they had multiple confirmations that he is dead. They also said all French Quarter hotels are under lockdown, so no beignets this morning, tourists. Sorry.

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24 points

Subheading:

The driver remained at large after the Bourbon Street incident, police said.

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24 points

Well damn it, I read the whole article but the subheading.

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12 points

lol, it happens to the best of us.

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17 points

The article has been updated:

the suspect allegedly got out of the truck wielding an assault rifle and opened fire on police officers, law enforcement officials briefed on the incident told ABC News. Officers returned fire, killing the suspect who was not immediately identified, sources said.

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3 points

Apparently they were flying an ISIS flag. So probably not in this case.

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3 points

Please do not fall for the right-wing rumor mill. There was a flag. That’s pretty much all we can say for sure right now.

https://www.newsweek.com/flag-back-truck-new-orleans-attack-raises-questions-2008295

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3 points
*

Your own article confirms it was an ISIS flag so I have no idea why you responded so dismissively.

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5 points

It says it was confirmed to be an ISIS flag by the FBI, but that doesn’t rule out a literal false flag attack to justify reprisals against Muslims.

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5 points

Correct.

But a concerning thing to me is that there has been a lot of crossover between some white nationalists and extreme islamist terror orgs over the last decade or so.

They have very similar (conservative) values and goals (accelerationism). One WN group that was recently busted up was called The Base, which is also the English meaning of Al Qaeda.

Though the American government is much more quick to label Islamic adjacent attackers terrorists than any white attacker.

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1 point

Despite their similar ideology these groups have almost no overlap because they hate one another so I guess I’m not following your line of thought here. Besides endorsing similar tactics and hateful ideologies is there any other connection?

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3 points

The overlap is Abrahamic religion

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14 points

Just for anyone else reading through the comments, they’re now reporting the driver was killed in a shoot out with police on the scene.

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20 points
*

Last thing I’d want to do is anger a NOLA cop.

Holy ctap. Two cops shot, bomb found in the quarter. Hell of a deal.

The Hotels around Bourbon street have locked their doors, allowing no one in or out.

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9 points

Bro NOPD is worthless what lol

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16 points

One day I called the elevator in my condo building. When the doors opened, the interior was covered in blood. There was a guy who was semiconcious leaning there. He was beat to hell. So, I decided to take the stairs. On the way down, I called 911. When I got down to the security gate, there was a NOPD car. I explained what I had seen. The cop explained that he had given the guy a ride to my building. Now, I don’t know what kind of ride it was, but it was obvious he didn’t give a fuck.

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31 points

From The Guardian, which is doing live updates:

More details of what happened in Bourbon Street are beginning to emerge.

According to reports on the ground from US network CBS, the white truck crashed into the victims at high speed while they were celebrating the New Year.

The driver, according to witnesses who spoke to CBS, then got out and began firing a weapon. Police then returned fire.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2025/jan/01/new-orleans-vehicle-mass-fatalities-live-updates

What a nightmare.

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22 points

Just added:

Alethea Duncan, an assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s New Orleans field office, said officials were investigating the discovery of at least one suspected improvised explosive device at the scene.

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2 points

I’m going to laugh if it turns out that those aren’t actual IEDs planted by a terrorist, but just fireworks hid on the scene earlier by revelers. They were hoping to sneak them past the guards before the event even started.

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6 points

“We have information to a certain degree of the demographics of those who are in the hospital right now,” New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said in a news briefing Wednesday morning. “We do not know at this point how many could be tourists versus locals, but from the information I have right now, it seems the majority are locals.”

https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/new-orleans-mass-casualty-bourbon-street-01-01-24-hnk/index.html

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27 points

Also, there’s this bullshit:

“We do know that the city of New Orleans was impacted by a terrorist attack,” Cantrell said, noting the incident is still under investigation.

Shortly later, an FBI agent told reporters, “This is not a terrorist event.” It was not immediately clear why the mayor and the FBI had differing information.

I can guess white why.

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43 points

How is this not terrorism, while killing a single CEO is? The term is applied entirely arbitrarily.

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3 points

Note the difference in law between US and New York state.

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3 points

Because there’s 51 legal definitions of Terrorism in the US. So effectively, yes. Just like there’s ~3,000 different policies on when and how to use force.

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132 points

Bollards save lives. All pedestrian areas should be protected from cars by some kind of physical barrier. This protects against intentional attacks and drunk driving incidents.

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5 points
*

I agree with you that bollards save lives, but this appears to be a situation where normally drivable streets are closed off for a street party. Is there a feasible way to temporarily block those streets with something that would stop these incidents and also not damage the road (and also not cost taxpayers a ridiculous amount, obviously)?

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3 points

Caltrops

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4 points

If you’re really determined to plow into a crowd of people, you’ll do it on the rims.

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1 point

I know. We’ll just use anti-vehicle land mines instead! That will keep the cars at bay and make everyone feel safe!

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20 points

A simple solution to me would be to place concrete blocks like this

Using a truck like this

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-3 points

I wonder how cost-effective doing that would be and also what the damage potential to the street would be? I realize those are callous things to talk about when you’re talking about protecting people’s lives, but unfortunately American cities run on whether or not people think their taxpayer dollars are being spent properly.

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-2 points

Not possible. The French quarter is very small with narrow streets which are used daily when there are no events

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3 points

That’s what my city does when there is a street party.

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8 points
*

Bollards that can raise/lower aren’t that expensive and they don’t need to be mechanized. Back at my university, they’d raise them when they’d close off driveable areas for events and there’s just a hook to lift them up and secure at a higher height with a lock. They were made of solid metal and concrete so I assume they had some sort of counterweight underneath to help raise them.

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3 points

They have them on every street leading into the busy part of Bourbon. This one was down for some reason.

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9 points

Yes, block them permanently. Fuck cars.

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8 points
*

I’m sure New Orleans will get on that right after they put solar panels on every building, a windmill on top of every skyscraper, and free food and education for all.

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5 points

I’ve seen moveable anti car barricades. I think they work the same as those anti tank things. If someone runs into it the car is lifted off the ground. Something like this https://barriers.miframsecurity.com/products/

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5 points

In Austin they commonly block off all roads to 6th Street with at least a cop car, if not two or three. I think this was something overlooked by whoever planned the event, leaving an unprotected street.

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5 points

In my college town they would use the municipal snow plows to block streets for festivals. I don’t care how much redneck shit you’ve done to your F350, it isn’t beating a snow plow.

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2 points

Cops still do that here for large street events. One of the streets does it often and they eventually installed retractable bollards.

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7 points

For street parties in my city, they have used concrete “Jersey barriers” or other off the shelf large concrete blocks to temporarily block the ends of the street.

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16 points

There are bollards around the quarter during events. Reports are that the truck. Intensionally avoided and drove through barriers

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1 point

Reports ARE that the truck.

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58 points

The French Quarter has retractable bollards in that area. They had been temporarily removed for upgrades ahead of the Super Bowl. At least that’s the story circulating here.

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16 points

If that’s true I hope they get the shit sued out of them. “Oh sorry we decided to risk you all being murdered for a while”

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9 points

New Orleans government is legendarily inconmpetent and corrupt, especially law enforcement.

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9 points

Yeah, and my understanding was there was some other kind of blockade up and he just went around it.

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32 points

Including bike lanes and bikeways!

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3 points

They have them. There are bollards and retractable mechanical devices to block off the busy part of Bourbon. One was down for some reason.

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1 point

Ostensibly the bollards aren’t on the sidewalk so the assailant drove around them

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