fbi would take over, work this conjunction with, because at that point it's something that would be charged federally potentially or others could be charged federally. we don't know the status of this alleged suspect. that's something we need to get more clarity on. but that's an indication that there is a national security component to it or that there's something outside of the ordinary, which just in listening to the new orleans superintendent of police it's clear as we said at the beginning, this was no accident. >> tom winter, our nbc news law enforcement and national security correspondent. tom, thank you very much. i'm going i'm going to ask you to stand by as it is now 8:00 on the the air with breaking news for this nbc news special report. we have learned that just after 3:00 this morning, police in new orleans say a man driving a pickup truck plowed into a crowd of people on bourbon street in the french quarter w who had ben celebrating new year's, killing at least ten people. more than 30 people are in the hospital as we speak with injuries. this

driver then apparently opened fire on two police officers. both of those officers were shot. we understand they are in stable condition at this hour. they are also now investigating an improvised explosive device that is in the french quarter as well, a kind of suspicious package here. all of it happening just hours before the sugar bowl is set to begin in new orleans, drawing crowds of college football fans. the superintendent of the new orleans police department says this driver was, in her words, hell bent on creating carnage on creating damage. the new orleans mayor has called this a terrorist attack, clearly intentional. this driver was at a very fast clip, driving very quickly, apparently past barricades that had been put in place at what was supposed to be the heart of the party in new orleans for new year's eve. we want to take you back now to our local coverage from our nbc station in new orleans, wdsu for more. had this whole incident of a man driving down bourbon, hitting multiple people, then

crashing his car, we actually see the video that was sent to us from a viewer crashing his car into a construction vehicle, then firing at police. we are being told by our sources within nopd that that person who was driving is not alive anymore. that's what we're being told by police, or at least by our sources within police. and we are being told at least two officers were shot during that. but i'm going to take a step aside so you guys can see more officers are kind of moving in the area. it's a little bit more movement than what we saw this morning earlier. everyone kind of was just waiting around. i think. i'm pretty sure it was kind of waiting to see what they should do with the situation. with that possible ied that was found further down the way. i mean, it is it's not moving. if you are trying to get in this area, you're being told to avoid it because this is going to be the scene for most of the day. a lot of law enforcement officers and, you know, one of the things is, guys, it is 702 this morning. people are just getting out and about. i mean, i'm seeing people, georgia fans, as

we speak, walking right by us, trying to figure out what exactly happened last night because some people are just waking up with us right now. i know we've been up since 4 a.m. talking about this, but some people had no idea that this happened. and so we are just kind of waiting right now. but the reason why guys, we cannot see they've blocked, you can see right here. they blocked it with the fire truck. they've been blocking it with the mounted police. they do not want us to see the scene. it is not pretty. and i'm being told by some restaurant owners in the area that it was scary for everyone that was in that area. and you don't want to see this. in fact, now they're going to move the fire truck. do you mind if we go ahead and let's see, i'm going to actually move you guys for a second. let me take that for you. here we go. this is going to be the first look that we've had from this area. so you guys can look all the way down. we're going to have my photojournalist get set up for you guys. so this is continuing to change. it looks like they have cleared more than what we saw initially when i first got here. but you can see looking all the way

down. police officers, crews going down. the patrolmen are going to be walking right in front of us in a second. i have a feeling. but what we can see is cars. looks like cars have been wrecked. so maybe those cars were in the area. we're seeing debris looking down over here. let me see if i can look over here and look into the camera a little bit. neil, if you don't mind. okay. yep. the horses are goioing to be in the way. now, this has been the constant thing of us trying to get an idea of what exactly it looks like right now. but guys, we're going to continue to stay here, try to get as much information as possible. my sources with nypd say the fbi has taken over. homicide is in there. the coroner's office has been back there as well. we've seen a lot of times with these cars right here. they've been moving down. but yeah, guys, i'm going to keep you guys up to date with the latest as soon as we get there. but for now, reporting here on bourbon and canal street. i'm cassie sherman. send it back to you all. all right. yeah. cassie. and just to. we were looking

there, of course, at the area in new orleans where this incident happened, as we have been taking our local coverage from our nbc station, wdsu in new orleans there. we're joined now by rob d'amico, former fbi agent who worked in counterterrorism, for more. rob, you have been watching this. you have been hearing the updates coming in. we know at least ten people killed, dozens in the hospital. two officers shot. and now this investigation into a potential improvised explosive device. talk us through some of the biggest questions that you have moving forward, as in your line of work, this kind of scene that we are looking at here is exactly what agents, what law enforcement had hoped to avoid. absolutely. i think the big one looking at and when i first heard this this morning, i was actually doing a news clip on on the guy with all the homemade explosive devices. and i saw this. and the first thing i thought of is the christmas parades in germany, that there was intel that intelligence agency pushed to the germans about this. was there anything else in that intel bulletin that may point to this? looking at

the us, i, i had said it could be a triggering event. it may not be something that was planned, but it may have been that someone saw that event in germany and thought about this. so if you're looking at it, a vehicle used in a crowd, and then this plan comes together at an event that's that's very large. a lot of people out on the street, it's known that a vehicle can can kill a whole bunch of people. as we've seen, it's one of the more effective, i think one of the surprising, not surprising, but this is up a cliff in the fact that he engaged law enforcement with a weapon after, and he might have an ied device in his car. so that's a three stage kind of evenent that they're looking at. so it doesn't surprise me because, again, i don't know if this was something that was talked about online or if it was an event that this person saw happen in germany just before christmas that then gave him

ideas to do this. but i definitely think it's a terrorist event, even if he's not connected to a group. this kind of event inflicts terror on people. and now you're looking at the sugar bowl. you know how how people are going to be afraid to even walk to the to the venue there and stand around in crowds. so it is it's pushing terror. howaxing is it on law enforcement to be able to have to do this investigation into what happened this morning, while also looking ahead to the massive college football event, the sugar bowl in town tonight? well, new orleans is a is a big police department and the fbi is now involved. so i think you what you have to do is just, you know, call everybody in. i guarantee fbi, new orleans pd, everyone's you know, phones went off getting them into the office. you're going to have to look at this as a criminal event. as far as evidence. gather that seal it off and then have a probably a working

committee, which they already had for the sugar bowl, the joint terrorism task force, i'm sure is, is manning up for that and then start looking at precautions for the sugar bowl. so if you break it down into priorities of getting this done as far as evidence and then looking forward to the safety and security of the sugar bowl and both agencies big enough to do it, fbi is probably flying other people in or getting them from field offices close to provide additional support. the governor calling it this morning a horrific act of violence that happened on bourbon street. as you look ahead even further out here, rob, you've got mardi gras coming up next month. i think it is. and just in just weeks from now, you've got other huge events that are set to happen in new orleans soon. the security posture is always such a focus for big celebrations like new year's eve, like for some of these other events, if you were advising, if you were working on something like this, what changes would you make?ell, i

would have already made them with what happened in the christmas event. they said he got around several barricades or barriers. well, obviously they weren't very good barriers. i mean, you look at an event in like new york city where they use garbage trucks and big dump trucks so that no vehicle can get in, you know, why should a vehicle have access unless it's a police vehicle into an area like bourbon street where everyone's just walking around going from bar to bar, drinking like there should be no vehicle access at all. there's even smaller barricades that you can use that police can use by hand. move back and forth. but i really think you have to look at it in layers. there's a part that no vehicles get in. and how do you prevent that. and then having defense in depth where there's multiple layers that no one can even get up to speed to even get past barriers. so i think events like this, they thought they had the proper

barriers and security setup. i think events like this show, if someone's really motivated, they can get through a bunch of that. unless you really make it hard now, it also makes it hard to get to the event, and then it ties up traffic and it does all those other things that they're hesitant to do. but you really have to look at the safety of the people. and, you know, if you're going to the sugar bowl, would you care if it was tough to get in as long as you felt safe when you got there? probably not. you talk about the three pieces to what happened this morning, the truck driving into the crowd, the gunshots that were fired, police say by the driver hitting at least two officers. and then this improvised explosive device that they're looking into as well. how long might it typically take for law enforcement to assess this apparently homemade explosive potentially detonated or assess that it's not a threat as well? should we be hearing more about that? i would imagine, in the next couple of hours? oh, absolutely. you know, explosive ordinance disposal has, i mean, since iraq and

afghanistan is really come, come around far. so i guarantee the bomb squad's already on it. they're looking at it. if it's if they're going to get it into a safe container, either render it safe there if they can't, but safe container and get it out of that area. that's one of the quickest things they're going to do. just they have to and then get the you know, obviously the evidence around the scene. but like that, that device itself is going to have evidence. they want to save it in iraq and afghanistan. we're getting fingerprints off of the tape on the devices, because the bomb makers weren't really careful when they put it together. so it could lend it points back to the one person thing, or if there's other people's fingerprints on there besides the person who's driving the truck, it may lead to multiple people in the in the planning of this event. rob d'amico, former fbi agent, thank you so much for being with us

this morning as we are covering all of this that is happening in new orleans now, at least ten people killed, dozens of others hurt after a man driving a pickup truck plowed into a crowd of people at about 3:00 this morning, just after 3 a.m. we want to take you back now to our nbc news local station, wdsu, with continuing coverage here in new orleans. let's listen in and drive them to the point of conducting one of these attacks. what that is how this all came about. that's just information we don't know yet. and that's information that needs to be developed from the investigation, obviously. yeah. look, tom, before we let you go, we appreciate you jumping on with us here. obviously, people will try to unpack the details on who this person was. we don't know yet. it is our understanding through sources that the person has been killed. but how big of a deep dive do they do? are they trying to identify the person now? possibly go to his home, identify contacts? because clearly this was intentional. this was not a drunk driver. as the police chief said. that's

right. so what they're going to do is they're going to look at the vehicle, they're going to run the plates on that. is it matched to this particular individual? was it a rental car? we see the rental cars used often. so was it a rental vehicle that was used. when was it when was it signed out. and so where did it come from? if it is a private vehicle, does it belong to the suspect? if not, who did it belong to? those individuals immediately get a look at. so you know, it's kind of a situation where they can as much information as they can get. and if this person had any sort of id on them, they'll be able to develop a lot of information right away as far as who their background is. and then various investigative squads of the fbi,, the new orleans police department, their detectives, they'll work together to immediately fan out and try to contact as many people as possible. and they'll also look to put together a search warrant, probably filed federally or perhaps locally, whatever is the easiest way to

do it, depending upon where this person is fro to be able to immediately, lawfully search that. and there's a lot of things they can do in this person's communications. it's exigent circumstance warrant. they'll be able to get a lot of information prettyast. all right. tom winter, nbc investigative reporter. we know you're following this from new york, as is the network, as this has become a worldwide headline. unfortunately, in new orleans on january 1st, if you are just joining us at 715, we are following a breaking news story, what the mayor is calling an act of terrorism on the streets of new orleans, on bourbon street, just after 3:15 a.m, a man intentionally drove around barricades, possibly those bollards on bourbon street, driving down bourbon street with the intention to harm and kill people. ten people have died, more than 30 at area hospitals. the man then exchanged gunfire with nypd officers. it is our understanding through sources, this person who is not identified, has been shot and killed. at this time. two nypd

officers also shot and injured. the police superintendent says they are both in stable condition at an area hospital. we do have aubry killion at usc. we're going to get to him in just one second. we also have numerous crews all over the city of new orleans. my brother fletcher mccall, as well as anum siddiqui and brittney verner. we are going to get to you in just one second. let's go back to cassie. sherm, before we get to aubry at umc. yeah, travers, we are just seeing for the first time at least, what bourbon street looks like from here. i'm on canal and bourbon street. we're about a two minute walk from where that scene happened, and i'm heartbroken. i really am heartbroken. what we're seeing right now, because we are still seeing red light tarps covering things that are down. bourbon. that's why the police officers are back now in fronont of us. m it's just it's just awful. a lot of people are just waking up to this. some people have been out of their hotels this entire time because they could not even get back to their hotels, because

everything has been roped off. so we have a lot of people that are just standing by, just trying to figure out what's going on. some people are like asking, you know, do you know any of the victims? do you know anything like that? what we do know is that at least 30 people have been injured. ten people are now dead after this deadly incident, after a man drove through the barricades over in this area here, made it around the barricades to go through. and i mean, it is a very heavy scene over here. just a lot of sadness from people in this area. a tragedy, a complete tragedy, very tense too, because officers never want to see anything like this happen. no one wants to see anything like this happen in the city of new orleans. and i'll tell you, just watching the videos that viewers are sending me right now, we cannot even show you some of these videos because they are horrific. to see anyone having lying on the ground like that. it's just this is not something that the city of new orleans wants, and they have been preparing for months to make sure something like this doesn't happen, especially having more

than 300 officers here last night covering this area. and so i know there's a lot of heavy hearts right now. and, you know, my prayers are going out to everyone who was impacted by this, because watching some of those videos, i'm sure this was probably one of the worst nights for some people. and so we're going to continue to keep on asking questions and try to get more information to. officers are in the hospital right now. they do not have any life so that's what we know so far.. but reporting here from bourbon and canal street, i'm cassie sherman, back to you. all right, cassie, this is our local coverage there from our nbc station, wdsu. let me bring back in our nbc news national security correspondent, tom winter, who's joining us now on the phone. and, tom, as this search for answers continues in new orleans after this horrific scene, we now know from a federal law enforcement official that the suspect here, the driver, is believed to be dead. any other details on that so far? that's right. kelly. that's the latest from our colleague ken dilanian, hearing that from a senior federal law enforcement official and starting to get

some images that we're in the process of verifying from the scene, but it appears to be a white pickup truck. there's a number of bullet holes on it. and trying to corroborate some additional information that we see, you know, from that vehicle and what that can tell us. a law enforcement official who is not actively involved in this, but just obviously, this has gotten the attention of law enforcement officials across the east coast here this morning, pointed out that there was a bollard replacement. so those are the kind of the stainless steel drums, if you will, that are typically lined these streets and typically line these areas as a security measure to make sure vehicles don't aren't able to go down these streets. now, whether or not that was just to protect the sidewalk or whether or not that was to protect the street, that was something that was in the process of being done. also, where was this on the street? was it at the very beginning, and did this individual carry out this

apparent attack because they were able to just get close enough to the security area to be able to create damage, as people would be close to the entrance of the street, or were they actually able to get a distance down the street? those are all questions that we have here this morning and don't, frankly, yet, because it's still very much early in this investigation have the answers to. but there are a number of different components that they're looking at. if this individual is deceased, if they had any id on them, of course they'll be able to immediately go to work. and since they have a license plate on a vehicle, they'll be able to determine whether or not this this vehicle was rented. was it a vehicle that this person owned and all sorts of information off of that? do we know yet, tom, if they have an identification on this driver? i have not been. no identification has been shared with me. that doesn't mean that they don't have one. it's just that i haven't heard that they have one at this stage, presumably on the ground. this

individual is deceased. they would be able to. the fbi has a if not, the fbi has the ability to run those, those fingerprints. so now that doesn't necessarily mean that this individual is in their system, but if they have any sort of a record or any sort of background where they would have been fingerprinted in the past, that can be very helpful. they can do that very quickly. the fbi has that ability. and then obviously the fact that they have a vehicle, you have a piece of evidence, and if the vehicle was rented to john doe and that john doe photo that matches the person that they have deceased at the scene, then they'll be able to have that type of information. so there's all sorts of different, all sorts of different means and methods that they can use to be able to try to determine that, that identification that's probably already happened. and presumably, tom, the gun that this driver used to shoot at

police officers is also a critical piece of evidence here that could potentially be used to track his track, his identity to figure out where he got this gun from. et cetera. huge. yeah. where did he get the gun? who sold it to him? was it purchased lawfully? was it not? if so, is there more information there that other individuals that they could be looking at in the course of this investigation? you know, this stuff at this stage, it's over. the suspect is deceased. unfortunately, so are ten individuals who are trying to enjoy their new year's eve celebrations in two. cops are lying in a hospital, but there is a bit of a different component to this because as you and i alluded to earlier, there is a major the sugar bowl is in new orleans tonight, a major national event at the superdome. so you want to be very, very clear and very certain right away whether or not you have a potentialroblem here that could expand beyond this. and so i'm guessing that there is a pace and a tempo to this that

will be even faster than usual, just to try to get to the bottom of who this person is and what their background is. tom winter, i'm going to let you hop on the phone. i know you have calls to make to your sources as well. as they continue to investigate what has happened in new orleans just after 3:00 this morning, as crowds of people had been celebrating new year's eve on bourbon street in the famous french quarter of that city. at leleast ten people killed aftera driver plowed his pickup truck intentionally, according to police. into that celebration, we want to take you back now to our local coverage of wdsu, our local nbc news station, continuing to follow this, and i should let you know, we are expecting another update from law enforcement that we will bring you in just a couple of hours. let's take you back now to new orleans. live. a state trooper with louisiana state police saw a suspicious package. he called it in, and they are now investigating what they believe could be an ied in the rv that you see with the flashing lights just arrived. that is a command center type

setup that they have set up here, right in front of tropical isle bar on the corner of bourbon and orleans. here in the heart of the french quarter, is they investigate, like you said, an ied that the suspect could have brought with him when he came in here to the french quarter on new year's eve, around thousands of people to harm people in our city. so again, this is a situation i don't think any of us have ever seen what's unfolding in real time with the mayor and the police chief and our reporters, and you have been laying out here, but again, a massive police presence in the french quarter, not only nopd and state police, wildlife and fisheries agents are here in everywhere is blocked off. so if you had any intention of driving into the french quarter today for any reason whatsoever, you are going to be diverted because there is nowhere to go. and what you're looking at right now, again, a serious situation like the fbi said, they are investigating a suspicious package because they believe that the suspect did have some explosive devices that

he brought to the french quarter in the pickup truck that superintendent kirkpatrick said he used to plow down bourbon street earlier today. so we'll continue to follow the situation here as they have brought in specialists to investigate what is a suspicious package. and more and more police presence continues to come to the scene. and, look, we're going to get to brittany in a second. and mike conan, we're looking live right now. just so you know, from being at these scenes what you're zoomed into right there, that white truck that is special operations that would indicate the bomb squad for nopd. you just zoomed in. it's that big white truck. it has the crest on the front with the red and blue light. that would indicate that the nopd bomb squad is out there. as you have been reporting. yeah, again, that that command center did just arrive moments ago. that's why we asked for you all to come out to us. you see the saint louis cathedral in the background. and again, just for perspective,

that is the corner of bourbon and orleans, right by the tropical isle bar, which is a huge destination for new year's eve, for mardi gras, one of the go to places, if you will, for people here are tourists and locals to go in the big events the heart of the french quarter. so again, we'll continue to see whatat unfolds. here is as the investigation ramps up. yeah, the big question everybody has right now is why was new orleans and the french quarter a target for this person? keep us updated. also, stay safe because when you're talking about ieds like this, we are not in a war zone. we are in a major american city right now. so give us the very latest information we're going to get to brittney verner and then to mike conn to react to this. before we do, we are going to show you some video that's coming into the newsroom. and over the next several days and weeks, you will see a lot of video, as there are so many cameras on bourbon street. this

is video that is very graphic. we have blurred a lot of it. it is the immediate aftermath that you are about to see after this attack happened, when somebody drove a truck down bourbon street, you can see there are people who are suffering on the ground right there, being attended to by first responders, police, probably everyday citizens who witnessed it and are trying to help out. everything happening just after 3:15 a.m. if you know new orleans and you know bourbon street, it was absolutely packed, more than likely at 315. we are a city that does not close at 2:00 like most other cities. the bars here and the partying go on all night well into the early morning hours. so at 315, more than likikely it ws probably prime time, and there were probably tens of thousands of people on bourbon street. let's go live to brittany verner. she is also on the scene right now. brittany, the mayor called this. we go back to this and you've been listening to wdsu, our nbc news station in new orleans. after that truck

ramming in that city on new year's eve, just after 3:00 this morning, i want to come back here to washington to gabe gutierrez, bececause, gabe, we understand now, just moments ago that president biden has been briefed on what happened. yeah, that's right. hallie, president biden has been briefed just a short time ago. the president waking up this morning in wilmington, delaware, after a last night. but we're just hearing from the white house that he was briefed early on this morning. certainly, it's still very early on in this investigation, but the white house has already been in contact with the mayor's office in new orleans. and the white house reiterates that the fbi is already on the ground, and president biden will be continued to be briefed throughout the day. certainly, there are a lot of outstanding questions at this point, hallie, a motive as local investigators and also the fbi looking into the motive behind this attack, the president keeping watch on it, as well as the national security council. hallie, gabe gutierrez, thank you very much. there in west palm beach, of

course, covering the transition with president elect trump. we will see if he has anything to say this morning as well. i want to go now to somebody who was there. i believe we have an eyewitness on the phone on bourbon street when this happened. jimmy. catherine? jimmy, can you hear me? okay. yes, ma'am. how are you doing? blessed. but i've been better, i bet. can you walk us through where you were this morning and describe what you saw? we were kind of finishing out the night, coming from bourbon towards canal, and there was a l of commotion at the end, so we ducked off into a nightclub for a moment to let all that settle what we thought was settling. and then within a couple of minutes of walking in, a group of frantic females run inside, pushed past security and hide under tables. and so when we seen that we live here, and unfortunately, our first

thoughts were somebody shooting or chasing them. so we knew the club we were at, we ran upstairs, we knew they had a balcony. whenever we got to the balcony. it is not what we expected. there were. it was the beginning of the mass casualties. dead. right in front of us was someone's mother, twisted? obviously deceased. we counted eight just from a couple of seconds of standing there. eight bodies, two looked to be at least alive. i wouldn't say survivable, but alive. and the other four were clearly, very clearly, graphically deceased. that is. and no one, no one, no

one was around. like after they were mowed over, not knowing anything, like no one was helping these people, they wouldn't let us out, i have training personally and they just immediately locked us in there and we could see some people did eventually go and start attending to the bodies. one man, deceased, had tire tracks across his back, and then when someone turned him over, he had tire tracks across his stomach and he was clearly crushed. the mother that was in front of us, she was just horribly disfigured. a little girl that we had seen dancing as we were walking up the street, was as flat as a pillow. i mean, it just it just kept going, like

every eyeshot body, body, body, body, body, it's difficult to hear. i'm sure it was far worse to witness and to experience believable. it was only to be referenced to a movie. the way you see the pickup truck. jimmy, did you hear the gunshots that were apparently fired after this happened, or had you been in the nightclub at the time that this happened? the gunshots is what we thought was the commotion up the street, but it was so loud where we were. we were kind of like in the thick of it. and then the truck. yeah, we heard the truck barrel by as more people piled in. and as soon as we got up to the balcony, he had already advanced 8 to 10 blocks. and that's what i was trying to tell the other people, is there were no barricades like this barricade stuff they're saying is not true. were there any barricades at any part of bourbon street when you came into the french quarter? yes. we

have tank barricades like the metal hydraulic raising, unreliable barricades. because this has happened so many times. when we got there, me and my friend were surprised that they hadn't put these up, because usually you can walk safely in the middle of bourbon. once you hit bourbon, they weren't up, so you still kind of had to watch your back for cars. but this is at 8 p.m. so now we're at 315, 3:10 a.m. they never put the barricades up. this man was able to hit 70 miles an hour for a clean 8 to 10 blocks down. bourbon. and we had barricades. you say 8 to 10 blocks. jimmy, during the time when you were in the club, how long did it take him to go? let's say those eight blocks. would you say how many seconds a minute? two minutes tops. he was out of sight. police were on foot when we got to the balcony with m-16s

hustling down the street. they didn't even have time to get in their vehicles yet and chase him. they were on foot chasing him. he was long gone and the only thing that stopped him is when he wrecked out. and that was clean. yeah. and y'all, y'all will figure out the coverage of where the carnage started and where he wrecked out. and that will show you exactly how far he got and that there were no barricades on bourbon up when you walked out of that club. jimmy. go ahead please. they had the flimsy triangle style orange and white barricade. that's what they had. i think you're referencing maybe what we're looking at here on screen. some of those barricades similar to those perhaps. jimmy, this is a city. nothing. yeah it is. it has been through agony. it has been through hell. this morning when you walked out of that cb, did you go home? where are you now? what did you see? and how are people doing

around you that we're witnessing this as well? well, i mean, i'm at home now, but we were held prisoner with those sights and carnage and memory inside that club for over an hour and a half, with no one telling us anything, which i understand. you got to cordon off the crime scene. but even when they let us out, they never told us anything while we were in there. like, a lot of us knew what happened, but some didn't. but even when they came in and told us to leave, they just started grabbing us. the police just started grabbing us by our clothes, throwing us out. and if you've seen my facebook video, you can hear them in the background. just throwing us literally physically grabbing hold of us and yanking us out the door. doesn't matter who we were with, because my buddy that went with me, we were. i think he went to the restroom. so when they said get out, they didn't care who you were waiting on. they wanted you out now, and if

you didn't, they told you you were resisting. they yanked us out, but me and him got separated. they put their hands on him, yanked him out because he's looking for me. and just the way they treated us after that. and the bodies are still there. they're just covered up with pink sheets. and you can see that in the video. they walk us out past all these bodies again, treat us like crap and say, have a nice night. unimaginable horror in new orleans this morning, jimmy corcoran, we are so grateful to you for sharing what you saw, for helping to fill in some of the details, some of the questions that so many people around the country have as they are watching the aftermath of this unfold. a lot of people are thinking about you andour city. jimmy, thank you very much for being with us this morning. as you heard there, somebody of course, jimmy catherine, local of new orleans, we understand from new orleans police that a majority of those injured and killed were local residents. you have a lot of people in from out of town considering the sugar

bowl, that huge college football playoff game is tonight in the city. it is at the superdome, just about a mile away from the french quarter. all of it is police, as you see in the images here, are continuing the investigation into what happened this morning when a man driving a pickup truck plowed into crowds of people, as you just heard from jimmy celebrating new year's eve. at least ten people have been killed. two police officers are among the 30 plus people who are in the hospital now. those officers are in stable condition after being fired on by the driver, according to police. i want to bring in now nbc's emily okita, who is following all of this from a different new year's eve celebration in times square. emily. good morning. hey there. hallie, good to be with you. the police superintendent of new orleans calling this very tragic, as you said, that resulted in ten people being killed, several dozen others transported to area hospitals. she also called it very intentional. this happened around 315 in the morning on the very popular tourist hotspot of bourbon street, she said. a man in a pickup truck intentionally drove around barricades, so it's

not clear what kind of barricades those were, and then went at a very fast pace down bourbon street. quote, trying to run over as many people as he possibly could. he eventually crashed and police say, started shooting at officers, striking two officers who we've learned are in stable condition. a federal law enforcement official tells nbc news that the suspect is believed to be dead at this time. they also say that the fbi is looking into this, investigating this as a potential terrorist event. the fbi is taking over the investigation and revealed that they found several improvised explosive devices near the area. our affiliate capturing images of robotics being deployed in that area. the governor of louisiana posting on social media saying a horrific act of violence took place on bourbon street earlier this morning, then urging all near the scene to avoid the to avoid bourbon street and that tourist hotspot. and also in town, tens of

thousands of people for the sugar bowl expected to play out later today, though the police noting they believe most of the people impacted by this horrific event are actually locals. we've learned the white house has been briefed on this tragedy. still, at this point, though, a number of unanswered questions, it's unclear what any possible motive was involved here. also, we don't have the suspect's identity. we expect to get more information at a news conference in a few hours. holly emily arcadia live for us on that. that news conference set to begin just around 11 a.m. eastern time. we will, of course, bring you those updates as we get them. i want to go now to our nbc news justice correspondent, ken dilanian, who's been working his sources. ken, what else are we learning this morning? holly i have now confirmed with two federal law enforcement officials that the suspect is dead. unclear the circumstances of that, whether he was shot by police or committed suicide. but the suspect is dead at the scene. that was left unclear in the morning news briefing by the police and the fbi, although the police chief did say that this

person set out to kill as many people as he could and called this an act of carnage and said it was a terrorist act. the fbi official who spoke appeared to contradict her and say it wasn't a terrorist incident. i am told by federal law enforcement official that the fbi is investigating this as potential terrorism. obviously, they need to run down a motive here, but in the common definition, this was clearly an act meant to kill a lot of people and to terrorize people. but again, the fbi taking the lead on this investigation, trying to run down the motive. but the suspect is believed to be dead and obviously identifying the suspect. once law enforcement does that, ken is going to be critical to assessing and determining the motive here. that's exactly right. and undoubtedly they know a lot more than they are saying to us at this moment about the identity there, running that down. and you know how this works. unfortunately, this has become all too familiar to us. they will scour the digital

atmosphere for any kind of social media profile of this person. they will begin profiling this person and try to figure out what their ideology was, where they are coming from. but clearly this was a chilling and intentional act and they are investigating it as potential terrorism. ken dilanian, thank you. i'll let you get back to your phone calls i know you'll be making. let me bring in rob d'amico, now, former fbi agent who worked in counterterrorism. rob, we know that the fbi is on scene. we heard from the assistant special agent in charge. in addition to the investigation into the truck ramming into the shots fired by the suspect, who, as ken just reported, is believed to be dead. there is also now this investigation into what's being called an improvised explove device, some sort of potentially homemade bomb that could be connected to this as well. right? absolutely. we've seen some of these before, even in school shootings. they've left ieds in their house knowing the police were going to go search the house. so they're going to find out who this person was.

and they're also for the search warrant of the house, wherever he lived. they're also going to have bomb squads there, because he's shown that he's capable of making something at least looks like an ied. so they're going to render that safe. they'll look for evidence on that ied. lots of times bomb makers make it with bare hands, and they leave fingerprints on the tape and other things they use for that. i think they're going to try to run that against the victim. i mean, the, the, the subject to make sure only his fingerprints are on that device so that they can start ruling out if there's other people involved. but i think that's a priority right now, since this event is over and the person is deceased, making sure that this is not some type of event that he had helpers or someone else was involved with, especially with the sugar bowl being down there. i think the priority now is to is to beef up security for this sugar bowl. they won't be able to definitively say that he wasn't helped. by the time the

sugar bowl and the people start going there. so they're going to have to assume that either it could be something else, or that it could be a copycat thing, but the sugar bowl is hopefully going to be a lot harder for vehicles to get in. and your your eyewitness talking about the barricades was very enlightening in the fact that we see those slanted barricades when the when the police chief said that the subject got around the barricades, you know, we all thinking about big barricades, cement or trucks, something that can actually block a vehicle. those barricades there are really not barricades. they just prevent someone from turning accidentally and going down the street. but not someone with a pickup truck who has intention to kill people. so i think it's a bit deceiving when they say he got around barricades. those those aren't barricades. those are just traffic blockers. of course, some questions, too, about what barricades might have been in place. we expect to hear more from police on that. rob,

when you listen to that eyewitness, he talked about the truck traveling. he said 70 miles an hour. it's hard to tell. of course, speeds when you're stationary on the ground, but moving very, very quickly, very fast. something like 8 to 10 blocks. what does that tell you about this driver and about this incident? well, when you look at it again, a vehicle is a deadly weapon. and it is. so i don't want to say effective, but it is. i mean, when you when you take a pickup truck and you get it up to speed, it's very hard to stop. and that's why most protection for big events like this, where there's crowds, you make them like a serpentine, like over in iraq and afghanistan to prevent cars from getting into bases, they had to go around in a serpentine so that those vehicles couldn't get up to speed, because once they get up to speed, even like, say, if you had two police cruisers blocking a street, a truck that gets up to 5060 miles an hour most likely will make it through

those. if they're just blocking the street the wrong way. so again, everything is to keep the speed of a vehicle like that down in order not to be able to do this damage and to be stopped quicker. so even if he got through certain certain barricades and then got up to speed where the people were. it is so dangerous to have a vehicle like that, especially a pickup truck. it's heavy, it has lots of power and it's a lot harder to stop. and the carnage he was talking about, we've seen overseas in incidents like this, and it's just horrifying to see. and i don't think the police you know, it was when they let him out. we talked about having to walk by the carnage and the scene that that's going to be horrifying on a whole lot of people that survive this, even traumatic for so many people in new orleans. rob damico, thank you very much for being with us. as you are taking a look now on your screen of some of the images we are just getting in of

the aftermath of this truck ramming in new orleans, you can see a heavy law enforcement response we were showing you just a moment ago, some of the live pictures that we're getting from our local nbc news station, wdsu in new orleans. we're going to take you back now to their live coverage and listen in for just a moment. right now, a mass carnage event, what the mayor is calling a terror attack in the city of new orleans just after 3:15 a.m, a truck went around the barricades or bollards. we don't know how that happened as bourbon street is not drivable. it is not known if the bollards were up or if barricades were up. but ten people have been killed on bourbon street, more than 30 taken to area hospitals. the suspect, who was not identified, has been killed, believed to have been shot and killed after wrecking the vehicle in question on bourbon street, right in the 100 block, and then getting into what is believed to be a gunfight with nopd officers. two officers shot and injured. they are said to be in stable condition. you can see

our crews all across new orleans. before we get to them, let's go back to mike con. mike, we have been reporting for the last hour that the suspect is dead. fbi working to identify that person right now. and any possible motive as to why this? why new orleans? why on new year's day? all right. we're going to come right back to mike conn. before we get to mike conn, let's get to aubry killion. he iss live a umc, the only level one trauma center. that is where a lot of these people, including the two nypd officers, have been brought. aubry. hey, travers, we are live from umc. i'm going to go straight on to the er ramp. it does appear that our vantage point. we did see mayor cantrell at one. hurtado clement street. speaking. all right, aubry,

we're having an issue with your microphone. as soon as you get that squared away, we are going to come back to you. let's get to cassie. sherm, she's on canal street. there's talk about multiple ieds. fletcher saw one. it's a big police presence in the french quarter right now. you saw nopd officers kind of sweeping the area. cars, garbage cans, trash bins, looking for anything suspicious. cassie, are you seeing the same thing where you are on canal street? yeah, i'm actually seeing that exact same thing going down. bourbon. so obviously we're on canal and bourbon right now to give you guys a little bit idea right across the way here. you guys can see right back there. tt is where it all started. and you're seeing officers going through looking underneath things. we saw people going through trash cans as well. we are seeing more looking in that area. i think that means that they're kind of just making their way through to see if it's safe to go through, because the fact that there are still bodies

there on canal street as we speak, i think that they're just trying to do their due diligence before everyone starts making their way to start cleaning the scene, as they're still investigating. now, i do want to say it was very interesting. i actually just talked to a man who was staying right across the street here at one of the hotels. he was actually on bourbon street around 2:00 this morning, right before all this went down. and he was just one shocked that something like this happened because he said there were so many police around in this area. now, one thing that he did say, though, that was very interesting, is he said, so we have this like cement baller type thing that's basically stops people from driving on bourbon from canal street. he said that that was not up. he said what was up was barricades. and i'm going to show you what the barricades he said looked like. it's those little, basically orange and white striped barricades. he said there was barricades. there was horse mounted horses as well, and patrol. and he said a lot of police officers. but he said he did not see that metal bollard

up during that time frame. and so that's something that we definitely are going to have to ask some questions about, of whether that was up or not. now, sometimes they do take it down later on when it starts getting quieter, especially when it's going to be time to clean the streets and stuff like that. but very, very interesting to learn that now. he said he was really fortunate because they leftt to go get pizza, and then that's when that incident happened. and so kind of got to be able to stay away from that situation. but yeah, we're going to continue to look into this reporting here from canal and bourbon street. i'm cassie sherm, back to you. when the fbi eventually starts to sort things out, the big question will be who this person is and why they did something like this in the city of new orleans. let's go back live to fletcher mccall. obviously, the mayor called this a terrorist attack. fletcher, i think we know what she means when she means an act of domestic terrorism where somebody intentionally tries to cause harm in a mass casualty type event. you just heard an explosion in the french quarter, and we saw that video le. that

video, it was actually live television of police officers walking down the street looking for what appeared to be suspicious packages or devices, and it looks like they are continuing with my glasses on. it looks like they're continuing to do that. yeah. trevor. so we just had a second explosion here in the french quarter. they screamed fire in the hole a second time, and they detonated what sounded like another type of explosive device. you see some people from special operations and the bomb squad working right down the street. i think photojournalists define cage has zoomed in on them right now. so again, just to kind of set the scene here, the fbi alluded to the fact that there was an ied type type device that they were investigating because they feel like the suspect may have had that when he came into the french quarter to do the harm that he did. a state police trooper called in a suspicious device. we were clred off of bourbon street. we're on dauphine right now in orleans. about five minutes ago, we heard the bomb squad scream fire in

the hole, and we heard what off. and just about 30s ago, org about 30s before you came to me, we heard it again. another fire in the hole and another detonation, which sounded like a firecracker going off. these aren't huge detonations. some of the residents that that live here are actually out watching right now following what's going on. there were people on the balconies earlier, but again, because of this investigation leading to potential ieds in the french quarter, we have seen police doing massive sweeps here with with the gloves, searching trash cans, searching under c cs everywhere. here in the french quarter, teams of police officers. we showed you that live on tv coming through looking for suspicious packages or anything out of the ordinary. they seem to have found one right on the corner of bourbon and orleans, right by the tropical isle bar, which is a huge landmark for people wanting to party during mardi gras new year's eve. other events in the french quarter. but again, we

have heard two small detonations from the special operations rv that came onto the scene down the street that you're looking at right now, and we'll continue to follow and monitor the situation here. yeah, fletcher, keep us posted. because obviously there are multiple scenes here. the one on bourbon street where ten people have been tragically killed at the hospitals, several local hospitals, umc baptist, truro, more than 30 people taken to area hospitals. and we should point out, this is one of the biggest celebrations and the biggest days in new orleans. we are a tourism city. the french quarter is a tourism mecca. bourbon street at 3:15 a.m. was more than likely packed wall to wall with people, not just people, coming to celebrate new year's eve in new orleans, but also with the sugar bowl, which kicks off in just about 13 hours. georgia and notre dame had large fan bases in the city when it comes to those killed and injured. the police superintendent, ann kirkpatrick, about 90 minutes ago, telling us

they do know the demographic. they believe a lot of the people were local, but they can't confirm that with everybody. let's go to brittney verner. she is at a different location near royal street, brittany. what are you seeing? as we should point out, the french quarter basically completely shut down right now. yeah. travers, we moved our location to royal and bienville street, and right now we're seeing much of what we saw in canal. lots of police officers and detectives over here investigating because that eight block circumference is blocked off. while this investigation continues, i'm going to step out of the way so you can see i'm going to have our photojournalist matt, zoom in a little bit more. so you can kind of see detectives are on bourbon street now. this was a crazy situation. many people not expecting to start their new year off with this type of tragic situation. we know that again, the fbi is now taking over this investigation as the lead concerning what happened here. fletcher just mentioned that they heard two potential

devices be detonated from where he's standing from that vantage point, obviously scary situation. we were told that one of the hotels over here was actually being evacuated. the tenants were being taken out. we haven't been able to confirm that, but we do see a lot of people starting to move around. this morning i actually spoke with a couple who witnessed that attack happen right before their eyes. they said if they had crossed the street a few moments sooner, they too would have been injured in this attack. but they watched that car plow into a crowd of people. they heard the screams and they saw the aftermath and saw the actual event happen. so scary situation for everyone involved, everyone who witnessed this. all of the people who were impacted by losing loved ones or having loved ones be injured in this attack. we know that city leaders this morning during their event said that there were about 300 officers working at the time. this happened in the french quarter, so obviously a large presence that was out in

the french quarter. on this busy night, we expect it to have a lot of people. there was a lot of traffic on canal and bourbon because obviously it's always traffic at that time of night. but it was new year's eve and going into new year's day, so obviously lots of people who were out bumper to bumper. so the couple that i spoke with who witnessed this says they don't even know how the man had that much speed to make it through those other cars, because cars were bumper to bumper last night. as you know, all of the festivities were happening. people said that, you know, they were having fun, and it quickly turned somber after this event happened. so right now, you know, we've confirmed ten people dead following this incident, around 30 people or more hospitalized at area hospitals all around. again, the fbi now investigating, and there were explosive devices that were found. so they were working to see if those were active. and fletcher mentioned that, you know, they heard a small explosion when possible. two of

those explosive devices were detonated. so, you know, this is unfolding, getting a lot deeper as we learn more about what's happening here. but we're supposed to get an update from city leaders once again at 11 this morning to kind of iron out more of those questions that we have. you know, we're told that the suspect in this situation is dead. now, we have that confirmed. so still a lot of unanswered questions here. a lot of people worried and concerned considering what happened. but for now, we're going to send it back to you in the studio. travers. all right, brittany, thank you very much. we're going to get to anum siddiqui in just a moment. she's now at the jax brewery, which is becoming another site right now. obviously.o much going on in the french quarter after what the mayor is calling a terrorist attack. somebody driving a vehicle down bourbon street, going around the bollard some kind oway, or at least a barricade if the bollards weren't up, killing ten people, injuring 30. plus, the mayor spoke about 90 minutes ago, giving an update to everybody.

as the world is watching this right now, this is probably the biggest story across america, if not the world right now. this attack on the united states, in the united states, in the city of new orleans, just about 3:15 a.m. let's take a listen to what mayor latoya cantrell had to say about this when she spoke to the media. we do know that the city of new orleans was impacted by a terrorist attack, that's all. still under investigation. you'll hear more after me. however, i have been in direct contact with the white house, with governor landry, and of course, a unified command who is present here. what i'm asking at this time are prayers for those who have lost their lives in the city of new orleans due to this tragedy. in addition to that, i'm asking the public to stay

clear of eight blocks around bourbon street. stay clear from bourbon street, eight blocks around very active. and again, a unified command is in place right now. i'm going to ask chief kirkpatrick to give you an update. you're then going to hear from our agent in charge. and as you heard the mayor just say, the white house has been briefed. president joe biden is in wilmington, delaware. he is heading to camp david. he is in constant contact. it's our understanding with the fbi and with the mayor and will be briefed later today. let's go back to mike. con. mike, when you see situations like this, because everybody wants to know who the person is, why did this happen? why did he target new orleans? those are answers that we may not get for several days i take it well. i think you'll find out who the person is today. i think you'll find that

part out today. i think you'll find out. are there potentially other people involved in this, or is it just one person who's involved in this entire scenario? and then what we have to look at is, what are these other ideas that are going off? what are the other ones being disrupted? are these situations where you're taking these devices, you're running them through an x ray. you see wires, they go ahead and use a disrupter, which is like a shotgun shell. they disrupt the device, and then they're finding more in different places. with the game going on, how do you protect against that with all these people going to the game from all different locations, what do you do about people who are pre-gaming with ice chests, with other bags that look like that? or is there anyone else involved in this? so there's still a lot to be considered. i think that's why your press conferences are so, so far off that one. we're dealing with the immediate casualty and the people who are still, unfortunately in the crime scene

and then going further and putting a plan together for acceptance of this game and how to get people in and out of the game safely. yeah. look, and when you talk about things like this, there are so many hotels in the french quarter. we have about 30,000 hotel rooms in this city. if i read correctly on a story that we did, and i believe it is correct, obviously they are about 85% occupancy right now. there are so many people who are at hotels. i'm going to use a hotel, for example, the royal sonesta. it's in the 300 block of bourbon street. they have the bourbon orleans right there. they have so many boutique hotels. is there a shelter in place? are they telling people to, hey, stick around your hotel lobby right now because so many people are downtown in the quarter, waking up right now at 8 a.m. and learning about this attack. all right. we're going to get back to michael in a s