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.
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.
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”
There are bollards around the quarter during events. Reports are that the truck. Intensionally avoided and drove through barriers
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)?
A simple solution to me would be to place concrete blocks like this
Using a truck like this
Not possible. The French quarter is very small with narrow streets which are used daily when there are no events
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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/
If you’re really determined to plow into a crowd of people, you’ll do it on the rims.
10 dead, 30 injured after car intentionally plows into crowds in New Orleans
Yet another fucking exculpatory headline minimizing the agency of the assailant because his weapon of choice happened to be a car. No, headline writer, the car didn’t do a goddamn thing; its driver did. Even putting “intentionally” in there, while better than nothing, still fails to make up for using the wrong subject!
Better version:
10 dead, 30 injured after assailant intentionally rams car into crowd in New Orleans
This is basically the same type of shit as minimizing police responsibility with headlines like “bystander struck by bullet during officer-involved shooting” (as opposed to “police officer shoots bystander”), and just as systematic and egregious. The only difference is that it’s done in service of car-supremacy rather than the abusive police state. I am really sick and tired of it, in both contexts.
After ramming the crowd, the killer got out and opened fire.
This was an intentional attack.
The key point is that that intention needs to be ascribed to the person, not the inanimate object.
last may the governor signed a law making it legal for drivers to run over people blocking the road fyi
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?
Subheading:
The driver remained at large after the Bourbon Street incident, police said.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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
Your own article confirms it was an ISIS flag so I have no idea why you responded so dismissively.
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.
What a nightmare.
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.
