Dozens of New Year’s victims terrorist attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans are filing lawsuits against the city and its police department.
Terrorist Shamsud-Din Jabbar from Texas 14 civilians were killed and injured dozens of others when a Ford-150 crashed through a crowd of people celebrating New Year’s Eve on a famous New Orleans street around 3 a.m. on January 1. Jabbar was killed in a shootout with the police.
One lawsuit filed Thursday by Morris Bart, LLC on behalf of seven victims targets the city of New Orleans, Hard Rock Construction and engineering firm Mott MacDonald, LLC, alleging they were negligent in providing safety measures that could have prevented the tragedy.
“We conducted an extensive investigation and believe the three defendants we named in the lawsuit could have — and should have — taken steps to prevent this tragedy,” Morris Bart said in a statement. “We hope that with this lawsuit we can help prevent future tragedies.”
Nathan Williams, a student at the University of New Orleans, lights a candle Jan. 3, 2025, at the Bourbon Street memorial for the victims of the deadly New Orleans New Year’s Eve truck attack. (AP)
The lawsuit says the defendants “have had years of opportunity to fix this known problem,” and “[c]The contractors did not fulfill their contractual obligations and did the work in the prescribed order and manner.”
“One scenario presented by Mott MacDonald eight months before this tragedy even involved a Ford F-150 making a special right turn from Canal Street onto Bourbon Street, a shockingly similar threat that was seemingly foreseeable before December 31st.”
The lawsuit concludes that had “Mott MacDonald competently provided engineering services to the City that explained the known threats, Mr. Jabbar’s access to Bourbon Street would have been completely prevented.”
A second lawsuit is expected to be filed against the city of New Orleans and the New Orleans Police Department on behalf of at least two dozen victims.
Law enforcement officers from multiple agencies work on Bourbon Street after 14 people were killed when a terrorist plowed into a crowd in the early hours of New Year’s Day in New Orleans. (Michael DeMocker/Getty Images)
Maples Connick, LLC, law firm from New Orleans, has opened a civil investigation into the attack and is working with Chicago-based mass disaster law firm Romanucci & Blandin, which has represented victims in several recent mass casualty events and attacks.
“Residents and visitors trusted New Orleans officials to keep them safe and it is deeply troubling to have preliminary information that municipal leaders were clearly aware of the vulnerability of Bourbon Street to the predictable and preventable events that ultimately occurred on January 1,” Romanucci & Blandin founder Antonio M. Romanucci, said in a statement.
“The breach of public trust is disturbing, and we are fiercely committed to pursuing accountability in this case.”
Maples Connick Partner Aaron Maples said “[t]there has to be accountability for leaving those people vulnerable to that harm and trauma.”
Investigators work after a terrorist drove a vehicle into a crowd at Canal and Bourbon streets in New Orleans on January 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
The City of New Orleans and the New Orleans Police Department do not comment on the pending litigation.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill is conducting its own independent review of potential security lapses that may have led to the Bourbon Street attack, telling Fox News Digital that its investigation is still in the “very early stages.”
“These are regular events in the city,” Murrill said, noting that New Year’s Eve, the Sugar Bowl, Mardi Gras and the Super Bowl are all part of the city’s recent event planning. “So I think I want to understand what the pressures are and who the different players are so that we can figure out how to make sure that we have an infrastructure that’s functional and that’s adequate and rises to the level of threats that this city is facing.”
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill speaks to the media on January 1, 2025 in New Orleans. (Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill)
Murrill described New Orleans as a “jolly city” where “there’s always a lot of activity that brings thousands of people to the streets for parades” and other festivities.
“There are different aspects of this process that will ultimately affect how we make lasting change.”
“The city is just going to have to grow, I think, in its concept of itself,” Murrill said.
On New Year’s Eve, the bollards on Bourbon Street were in the process of being replaced, a process that began on Nov. 19, according to the city’s website.
A New Orleans police vehicle blocks an entrance to Bourbon Street on January 2, 2025, near where people were killed by a man driving a truck in a New Orleans New Year’s Eve party attack. (Reuters/Octavio Jones)
While the replacement process was underway, officials set up a temporary barrier where Bourbon Street meets Canal Street, presumably to prevent suspicious vehicles from driving through the busy tourist area. However, according to local business owners and employees who previously spoke with Fox News Digital, that temporary barrier was lowered instead of raised, allowing vehicles to pass through on the holiday.
Official recommendations for New Orleans safety measures in the French Quarter, as part of a $2.3 billion infrastructure project that began in 2017, included installing new bollards on Bourbon Street to prevent mass casualty events identified by the FBI as a potential threat in popular tourist resort area.
Around that time, the city began planning updated safety measures, including bollards meant to prevent vehicles from entering the French Quarter’s busy streets.
Matthias Hauswirth of New Orleans prays in the street near where a terrorist plowed into a crowd at Canal and Bourbon streets in New Orleans on January 1, 2025. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
“The French Quarter is often densely packed with pedestrians and represents an area where a mass accident could occur,” a It is stated in the 2017 report. “This area is also a high risk and target area for terrorism that the FBI has identified as a concern that the City must address.
“Following the attacks in Nice, France; London, England; and the recent incident in New York’s Times Square in which bollards saved lives, it has become clear just how much vehicular and armed attackers can threaten popular tourist areas.”
A separate, confidential 2019 report obtained by Fox News from security consulting firm Interfor International warned that Bourbon Street was the “most prominent target” in New Orleans for a terrorist attack. A 60-page safety assessment commissioned by the French Quarter Management District bluntly states, “The current bollard system on Bourbon Street does not appear to be working.”
Multiple security experts told Fox News’ Garrett Tenney that the current bollard system, even if it existed, would not be strong enough to stop Jabbar’s attack because of the low crash ratings of the system installed at that size and the high speeds the F-150 truck reaches.
Tourists walk past temporary barriers at Orleans and Bourbon streets on January 2, 2025 in New Orleans. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
Interfor International said in its 2019 report that it “strongly recommends that cleat mobilization be immediately repaired/improved”.
Sources told Fox News that Interfor International never received a response from the city after submitting the report, although there is almost always some kind of follow-up after such a report.
Murrill told Fox News Digital that she is aware of the 2019 report and plans to obtain a copy as part of her review.
Samantha Petry lays flowers at a memorial at Canal and Bourbon streets on January 2, 2025 in New Orleans. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
She said there are questions for multiple public departments that may have been involved in planning security in the French Quarter on New Year’s Eve.
“What role did they play? I don’t know the answer to all these questions yet. I think there’s … a lot of coverage of that,” she said. “It pulls out a lot of different information. But, at the state level, we have to pull it all together and look at this from a safety management perspective, a disaster planning perspective … that integrates with the existing state, local and federal governance structure.”
The FBI released surveillance photos showing Shamsud-Din Jabbar an hour before he drove the truck down Bourbon Street in New Orleans early on January 1, 2025. (FBI via AP)
The FBI continues to investigate the attack and said Jabbar was motivated by ISIS extremism.
Federal authorities announced last week that Jabbar had previously visited New Orleans on two occasions — once on Oct. 30, 2024, and once on Nov. 10, 2024. The gunman also visited Cairo, Egypt, and Toronto, Canada, before the attack, the FBI said.
Although Jabbar apparently acted alone, authorities are still investigating whether he had accomplices.
