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 second. but if

you are waking up at 8 a.m. with us, we are covering major breaking news, a mass carnage event in the city of new orleans, what the mayor is describing as a terror attack. someone just after 3:15 a.m. drove a white pickup truck down bourbon street, somehow getting around either the bollards in place or the barricade. the mayor tells us they were intentionally trying to cause carnage, either hurt or kill people, and they did just that. ten people have been killed, more than 30 sent to area hospitals. the driver, who is not being identified, then wrecked that vehicle on bourbon street, right near iberville and bourbon street in the 100 block to give you landmarks not far from redfish grill or the crystal burger that is right there off canal. they exchanged gunfire with the nopd. it is believed that the suspect was shot and killed. two nypd officers shot and injured. they are at umc that is university medical center, where they are said to be in stable condition. we are going to get back to mike

conn. we are on the air with an nbc news special report, as you have been watching our local station, wdsu in new orleans. it is 9:00 now on the east coast, 8 a.m. in new orleans, where at least ten people have been killed after a man driving a truck intentionally plowed into a crowd celebrating new year's eve on bourbon street in the french quarter. police say he then opened fire, shooting two officers who are now in stable condition. in all, more than 30 people are being treated at local hospitals, two federal law enforcement sources tell nbc news. the driver, the suspect, is dead as police also investigate an improvised explosive device that was found in the area as well. this horrific attack, as the city's police chief said this person was hell bent on carnage, is happening just hours before the sugar bowl is set to kick off in new orleans, drawing college football fans from georgia from notre dame to the superdome, just about a mile away from bourbon street where this attack happened. i want to bring in now our nbc news law enforcement and intelligence correspondent tom

winter, who's been working his sources. he joins us now on the phone. tom, what else are we learning holly at this time? they're obviously investigating the motive. it is possible that something was found either in or on the vehicle that has helped them get to the point where they're starting to circle this. the fact that the fbi has taken over the investigation is clearest indication that they have developed some motive information, because otherwise this would be investigated as a local homicide. and obviously at least ten homicides at this point, wn the fbi gets involved, traditionally, and typically, that's an indication that there's a violation, obviously, of federal law. and so the federal law violation here would have to do with potentially motive. and so that's the reason why i think you heard the mayor reference the idea of terrorism. the assistant special agent in charge who spoke at the press conference wouldn't go that far. but clearly, the fbi standard, as far as calling it that and

what the direction of the investigation are two different things. so they're going to want to make sure from a federal perspective that they have the motive locked in in concrete, that just because somebody had something on their person doesn't necessarily mean that that ultimately was what the motive was. but i do think that ththey're they're coming towarda path where they are at least suspecting the idea of terrorism. and that's apparently a little bit as far as where the investigation is going, what will ultimately be determined? well, we'll find that out over time as they obviously uncover more evidence and do more work. as our colleague ken dilanian has been reporting to senior u.s. law enforcement officials to nbc news, saying that the suspect, the person who drove what is now being described to us as a pickup truck, that that individual is deceased. and we have some unconfirmed photos from the scene, which, if it were in fact accurate, you know, indicate a vehicle with significant damage. a pickup truck appears to be a late model, and we're still waiting

on getting some more information on that. so obviously a lot of details that are out there. the truck, if those photos are confirmed, he has a license plate that could be helpful. if it was a rental, they might know who rented it. if it was a car that belonged to a person, they would know that if it's stolen, that's even helpful information. so clearly they're going to be able to develop a lot. clearly, they've probably already developed a lot, and a lot of that is ahead of where we are in our reporting, as you would understand. and that would make sense. but either way, there's a tragedy that has occurred here. as you know, hallie, from we've spoken about these incidents far too often. typical i say, okay, this is the part where it'll slow down, they'll take their time, they'll uncover things. but i think here, hallie, given the fact that we have a sugar bowl that is going to be happening in new orleans tonight, there will certainly be an effort here to push this investigation at a at a much faster pace to make sure that they're not looking at any other potential incidents for later

today or later this evening. tom winter, thank you very much. i'd like you to stay close, if you can, as we expect to get more updates throughout the morning and throughout the day from new orleans. i want to show you now, as we are getting more video in from the immediate aftermath of this scene, what we are just now learning, what we're just now seeing. and i want you to listen because in this short clip we're about to play you, you can hear what sounds like gunshots fired. watch. this. so no audio on that clip, but you can see the images here. just a gut punch to look at this in the french quarter. bourbon street, perhaps one of the most famous streets in america, a huge new year's eve celebration. and just about 315 this morning, an eyewitness tells nbc news he saw this pickup truck going perhaps 8 to 10 blocks at a very fast clip down the street, describing the horrible aftermath in what has now turned into a tragedy to begin 2025, in louisiana. for

more, i want to bring in former secret service agent, former special agent evy. thank you for being here with us. you have heard now the updates from law enforcement talk about where this investigation goes from here. clearly a focus on the driver, the suspect and the motivation here. first, they're going to make sure that for safety, when you do these investigations the first thing is always safety. the key thing is did this person act alone. were there other potential people that might have been tied to them? right. is he a lone actor? are there others? the other thing is improvised explosive devices. we're hearing that there are devices or there's been a device. so that's another thing that they're going to check. are there devices? did this person leave devices elsewhere going to that person's home, seeing what's going on in that home, getting their devices, meaning getting their electronic devices, their computer, their phone, getting everything that they can to start looking through search history, any type of reconnaissance done. what did this person do? who did they

talk to? that's the biggest thing because you do have a major event coming up here in a couple of hours in new orleans. so they want to make sure that this person didn't or didn't plan anything else that's tied into something going on later. that's going to be the primary element for safety, safety, safety. upon that, you're going to be also now looking for motive. why did this person do it? is this an individual who is going through something personally and has chosen to do this in this specific way? or is this a person who's trying to portray some type of ideology, something that they feel passionate about and that they want to send a message? you want to look at that? did they communicate this often? as we see with these incidents, you have someone who wants the public to know they want to be seen, they want their message out there. so did they communicate this with anybody? did they post this on social media? the wonderful thing about technology today is that it's able to give so much more information to law enforcement than even doing interviews with

other people, but they will do interviews, family members, friends, acquaintances, people at work. that's what they're going to be covering. i suspect they'll be releasing information in pieces. but, you know, again, you've got local police, you've got the locals doing their part, you've got fbi doing their part. there was a little bit of a, a conflict in where the mayor said that there was a terrorist attack. the fbi said it it is not a terrorist attack. so there is kind of we're waiting on clarity there to see if, in fact it is or it isn't. so a lot of the stuff is unraveling as we speak. the other thing that they did mention during the press briefing is that they're ramping up police presence. they're getting help from the outside, which is a great idea, which is smart because they're looking at we've got other things going on, and we want everybody to feel safe in our city. right now, we are just in the last 30s or so getting a statement in, you referenced the sugar bowl, that huge college football game that

is set to kick off later on tonight in new orleans. the chief executive officer of the sugar bowl says that the committee is devastated by the terrible events from early this morning. this is a new statement. you see it here on screen just into us adding our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. we are in ongoing discussions with authorities on the local, state and federal levels and will communicate further details as they become available again, the new statement from the sugar bowl executive committee evy. the security posture here would already be intense for any kind of huge game like this, where you have thousands of people coming in from out of town, in addition to the thousands of locals who are celebrating new year's eve in new orleans. talk us through changes that we may see to the security posture you see from that sugar bowl statement. we don't know the specifics yet, but this is an all hands on deck effort. i will tell you this right. it's actually easier to secure a site like the sugar bowl than it is to secure a site like this, so i'm not i don't want to say i'm not as concerned they're going

to do their due diligence. they'll add more personnel if they need to, maybe close an entrance or two to funnel people through a specific entryway, maybe, you know, be really alert and doing searches on people, putting them through magnetometers. so i think that they're going to do a good job. but it's easier to secure a site like that because it's enclosed. right. i have a i have a perimeter around it. i've got a structure, i have my people, they go through security, i make sure they're clean. we use the term clean. nothing's on them. they enter the facility, they've been checked. and i know everybody within my facility, within my structure is safe and clean, and i secure that perimeter. a site like this event, like where we saw this, this individual put their vehicle through similar to what we saw. actually, this is coming off the heels of the event we saw in germany, christmas market in germany. a driver takes his car and does the exact same thing, just drives through a crowd of people. any time you have an open venue like this, these are much harder to secure.

you're looking at so many more variables. you don't have a structure around to help do the security on that. often when we did presidential events and we really needed to harden up a site, we wouldn't use barricades, we would actually use trucks, sanitation trucks, busses, vehicles to create real barricades that people couldn't get through. because what's interesting with this specific event, and similar to what happened in germany, in both scenarios, the driver was able to get around the barricades that were set up by police. the. during the press conference, it was also said here that we just heard that they had barricades very intent to cause harm. they were able to move around the barricades. i want to say this about barricades and police structures. some are set up that are super hard. you can't get through. some are set up to deter people. it means you deter people from doing bad acts. you deter people from trespassing or going through. it's a deterrent.

the thing that we're seeing is when you have a true bad actor actor, someone like this who is keen on causing harm, they will get through it. so i think after this event, seeing that we've seen two back to back one in germany, one here, that there may be a little bit of a shift in psyche and how we secure these events, making sure people now are truly safe. because i have to tell you, one of the biggest concerns, and i said this after the germany christmas market attack is copycats, copycats. and i really would want to know. i think it will come out during the investigation if that person was in any way, shape or form inspired by what happened in germany as well. evy, thank you very much. former secret service special agent, i want to ask you to stay close to your camera as well as we continue to get developments and as we expect updates on this throughout the morning, i want to bring in now nbc news justice correspondent ken dilanian, who's joining us live. ken, we talk about these car and truck attacks. we saw

the one in germany that evie referenced not too long ago, but there is a long history of these kinds of incidents. yeah. that's right. so just so people understand the context, that incident in germany, december 20th killed at least five people. they are still investigating the motive of this saudi arabian national who carried out that attack. there's some signs that he may have been mentally ill. they're not calling that specifically a terrorist inspired attack, but there were a lot of repercussions from that because it harkened back to an attack in 2016, in berlin thakilled 12 people, where a person drove a truck into a christmas market. and of course, in 2017, in times square, there was an isis inspired attack by a man who drove a truck into a group of people, killing seven. so long history of that. but this is the first time that i'm aware of that combined a vehicle attack of this nature with gunfire. police said the man fired shots and struck two new orleans police officers and potential

bombs. potential improvised explosive devices that the fbi says they are investigating. it's not clear whether those were real bombs, but what is clear is, as the police said, that this person was bent on killing as many people as possible. and the fbi said during that news conference that they are taking the lead on this investigation. and my sources tell me they are investigating it as a potential terrorist attack. obviously, the biggest question now is the identity of this suspect and any potential motive terrorism could could have a lot of forms. it could be isis inspired, obviously, or or it could be domestic ideology inspired, or it could be none of the above. and there could be a specific grievance involved here. but what's clear is that this was an intentional act. this person set out to create carnage, as the police chief put it, holly carnage through a variety of means, not just from ramming his pickup truck through this crowd, but then opening fire can on those police officers. we know at least two

of them have been shot. they're in the hospital in stable condition among the 30 plus people who have been injured. and then there's this improvised explosive device, some questions about where it was found, about whether or not it has been detonated. one of our local affiliate reporters from our station in new orleans, wdsu, saying that he heard something like perhaps a noise, something like fire in the hole, for example, from down the street where police have been investigating. this is all part and parcel of where this inquiry goes from here. that's right. and when i heard that local report, he said it sounded like a firecracker. that sounded to me like police being very cautious, seeing a backpack or something they believe is suspicious and conducting a controlled detonation. had that been a bomb, it would have been a much bigger explosion than just the sound of a firecracker. again, unclear what's going on there, but clearly the police are scouring the area and being very careful because the fbi said that there was evidence of an improvised explosive device. and clearly, as you said this, this person not only drove a truck into human beings gathered

for a celebration, but then opened fire and shot two new orleans police officers. so this person was bent on destruction. and, you know, there's some really big open questions. for example, did this person act alone or did he have any confederates or coconspirators? that's something the fbi is investigating right now. and until they can rule that out, they and the new orleans police and every law enforcement agency in that vicinity has to be super careful, super vigilant and investigate every possibility, including, you know, suspicious packages lying around the french quarter. ali ken dilanian, thank you very much. i want to go back to that former secret service special agent. one of the things that has come up is this issue, and you referenced it and ken referenced it there evy of these barricades. we spoke to an eyewitness not too long ago. will play back some of that interview in case people missed it. is there just waking up this morning who described seeing this pickup truck go something like 8 to 10 blocks very quickly down the street and saying that

he did not see those bollards or barricades up. he saw what looked like smaller versions, perhaps more like traffic stops. it is not clear at this point. we do know that the superintendent of the new orleans police department said that this driver went around whatever barricades were in place, but this is something that police, that law enforcement have learned to put in place now for years. this is a typical part of the security posture and the security apparatus for any big event, like a new year's eve celebration. i think it depends. you know, as we're looking at the image there, a barricade honestly can be anything. it depends how they're using the term. but even as we're looking at that image right now, we see, you know, the white triangle with the with the half, you know, bar. like they could even consider that a barricade. there's bike rack which is the metal bars that can be barricaded. you can have some bollards that could be considered barricade when you do security planning, you're very deliberate in what kind of barricade you want to use and how much do you have access to? is it bike rack? i'm suspecting. i'm suspecting again because i

don't know for sure. perhaps they used bike rack. you can easily dismantle that. the sure thing is, cement barricades. those can't be moved, but it's costly to put them in place. and you need a lot of them. you can use vehicles. vehicles are also great. it's something that we use. i do suspect moving forward, law enforcement is going to have to really rethink how they secure these events. i know we don't want to scare people. we want people to go enjoy themselves, but we also want to make sure that people feel safe. and i really think rethinking about how do you want to secure event. also, you know, i'm not trying to be morbid here, but these are things that i would think about in the security plan. this is a driver who drove through. it takes seconds to cause the carnage that they caused. second, and in this scenario, he actually crashed his car, then exited. so imagine if he didn't crash his car, how much more carnage he could have caused before he exited. the other thing is, we don't know if he had or didn't have any explosive devices in the vehicle and they failed to go off. or what if he did and

they did go off? these are the things you know, you want to think about because it's not just, you know, the world is changing. sadly, people are adding more and more elements to this, you know, and it's ken dilanian was reporting before, using a vehicle is not a new thing. but what's changing is the intent. the nefariousness, the bad actors that they're looking at. i'm not just going to drive my vehicle and try to hit something or someone, i'm actually going to bring a weapon. i'm actually going to really do massive carnage and we have to adapt. we have to change with the mentality of the bad actors that we are dealing with. and i do think that really shutting down the road, in fact, there was an earlier clip that was played of an individual saying who was at the event that we were just playing here at nbc, where he was saying there were vehicles going through throughout the night. i was surprised to see vehicles passing through with all these people around. evy poumpouras, a former secret service special agent. evy, thank you. that interview, of course, coming from jimmy cochran, who lives in

new orleans, who was on bourbon street when this happened. i want to bring in now nbc's morgan radford and morgan, you and our team have been looking through a number of videos that are starting to come in of the scene of the aftermath of what happened there in new orleans, just about 315 this morning. that's exactly right. we have been combing through the videos that are now circulating online. we've been reaching out to the sources and the witnesses who have filmed those videos. and to be clear, i want to show you the first shorter video. it's about four seconds where youear these loud bangs in the street. let's go ahead and play that video for you here on your screen. this is user generated content, as we call it. you can hear what appears to be loud bangs. it appears to sound like gunsts, which is consistent with the information that we have been reporting. you see a blurred body there on the ground. you see some bystanders rushing to help, and then as soon as those loud bangs appear in the air, they run. and that's what you're seeing at the end of the video. and i think it's important to take a moment for

our viewers when news breaks like this. things happen so quickly. and what we do, you know, to just sort of peel back the curtains. we have entire teams who combed through these videos, who reach out to sources that are directly on the ground, and then we verify them. we make sure that we are bringing you, our viewers, the best, most accurate videos in real time. but part of that process is making sure that we're gathering videos that are unaltered, making sure that we are gathering videos that have been verified, that making sure they are happening at that scene as they portray. and so as we're in the process of verifying more videos, holly i have personally seen more of what we call this user generated content content that comes from witnesses, bystanders who are filming, typically on their cell phones. and of what i have seen personally at this point, we have seen bodies on the ground and it looks like a war zone, bodies that have been crumpled, that are inert, that are misshapen, misshapen, and we see people running. we see exactly

the chaos that the superintendent described when that superintendent got on this morning, when you and i were both here behind the desk, and she said this was a person who was hell bent on creating carnage. that is what i have seen in these videos. you see the panic, you see the chaos, and you see the destruction. and what we're also seeing from these videos is consistent with what we've heard now from the fbi. the fbi just released another statement confirming that the suspect is deceased, that they are now leading the investigation down there in new orleans, and that they are confirming that this is, in fafact, an act of terrorism, something that we heard the mayor say earlier on this morning about 7:00 eastern time. and again, in consistency with those details we have been reporting thus far. as you mentioned, this happened at 3:15 a.m. local time there in new orleans when bystanders were saying bystanders said that they saw this car, this truck plow by at a high rate of speed. and that after that point is when he fired on officers. we know that two of those officers were shot

currently in stable condition at this point, and that could be possibly again. holly we are still waiting to verify that those were the gunshots we heard there in that video we just played for you. and of course we know at this time they are also trying to figure out the activity of those homemade bombs, for lack of a better word, those explosive devices the fbi is taking over. we know the governor landrieu has been briefed. we know the white house. of course, president biden has been briefed. and now this is where this begins, right? just for context, again, for our viewers, we're talking about new orleans, the big easy crescent city. this is one of the hottest spots where you could be on new year's, right? this is a place that was preparing for joy this new year, especially as they have in about 11 hours from now, their sugar bowl happening. kick off. they have the sugar bowl parade they have been preparing for. and then of course, remember they have the super bowl coming up in a month. so this is a city. this is the most famous city in the entire state of louisiana, bourbon street, where revelers

go. and that's what i've been seeing in those videos, people who were reveling, people who still had mardi gras beads on their necks. now they were laying trampled in the streeeet. we have more of those videos we are clearing in real time that we will bring to you and our viewers as soon as we do. holly. it is difficult to watch morgan. it is difficult to see and to hear about morgan radford. thank you. we will check back in with you later on in the morning. let me bring in now our nbc news law enforcement analyst, jim cavanaugh, who is joining us again. jim, you have heard the updates now from investigators at this point. they are looking into that improvised explosive device. there was that bang that was heard by one of the local reporters for nbc news on the scene there in the french quarter. we know that federal law enforcement sources have told us that the suspect, the driver, is dead. the investigation continues into the motive, the obviously recovery now continues for those 30 plus people who are injured at the hospital and for at least ten families, it is a nightmare as this new year begins with their loved ones killed in this truck

ramming. yeah, it's just heartbreaking to see this death on new year's day. it's horrible. and what the bomb squad is doing now, it's a complicated thing for them at this point because the fbi, asac, assistant special agent in charge said at the press conference that they found an ied. so when we have that information now, we have the bomb squad has got to go into that area. of course, normally they're going to check the killer's car for a homemade bomb. that would be a routine process anyway. now, what you also have, though, is people fleeing a chaotic scene like that are dropping bags, knapsacks, purses, all kinds of kari things that they'll drop along the way. and as they run and get out of the chaos, maybe trying to get out of the way of the attack. so there would be a lot of things dropped on the street. and sometimes those things come into suspicion as well. then we add on, this is

new year's eve. and so people come to celebrations with noisemakers, and sometimes people come with small, you know, firecracker type things that they want to, you know, make loud noises with that. they pitch around. and so that's even layered on top of it. so with the bomb squad has to do now is go in there and they find something that doesn't look right, and they put what we call a disruptor on it, a water disruptor. and that is fired with a shotgun shell. and that's the sound you hear. you hear it's a shotgun shell. it doesn't mean there's a bomb there. it means something suspicious found. we don't want to open it with a human hand. we will set up our disruptor and we'll back off, you know, 100 yards here or however far they can behind a building. and we'll fire the disruptor remotely, and it will bust open the package, and then we'll be able to look at it. if it is actually a bomb, that

disruptor often will, you know, break the detonating chain. it will knock the blasting cap out from the explosives or knock the fuze mechanism out, and they can send a robot up with a camera and then look and see if, say, is this just somebody's personal items? it's not a bomb at all. or was this something that was a bomb and we disrupted, or do we need to do further disruption on it if it is so all that's happening, but it doesn't mean there's multiple bombs now. there could be because the fbi said there was one ied. so we don't know exactly what that's made of. we don't know what that means. was it in the truck? did he have something in the truck he was going to light and throw? is it more sophisticated than that? you know, is it large? is it small? we don't have any data on that right now, but i think we'll probably get more of that at the news conference. and that again scheduled for 11:00 in new orleans. that's noon eastern time. jim, talk to us about the

investigation on the ground now, because you have a massive law enforcement presence there and preparations in place already for the sugar bowl, that huge college football game that's happening tonight at the superdome, which really isn't that far from the french quarter. exactly. well, you have louisiana state troopers from all over louisiana heading south. i guarantee you that they're moving their troopers down there. you got the jefferson parish deputies moving more people in and surrounding counties, probably coming to the aid of new orleans, because they're going to need a lot more people to help secure that sugar bowl. if it if it goes on and it may still go on, but with even a heightened level of security, you got federal agents, fbi and atf laid on doing the investigation with, you know, shoulder to shoulder with nopd. so you've got all those white collar detectives, and they're trying to piece this guy together. and behind that, you have the intelligence apparatus

of not only the new orleans pd intelligence, louisiana state police intelligence, atf intelligence, fbi intelligence. and if it turns out to be some internationally connected or inspired activity, then even our intel agencies who, you know, worldwide have their their feelers and intelligence out. so when we get the person's identity, motives and maybe connection later today, we can see how widespread these, these dragnets for this guy are. and it's all to see, you know, is he a lone mad dog or is he and maybe inspired by somebody? is he somebody that's, you know, has a personal revenge motive not related to what we would call classic terrorism, but certainly it's not, you know, a drunk with a truck because, you know, when he jumps out and shoots two uniformed new orleans officers and then they say he has a homemad bomb, which is just an ied, is just a fancy

inside baseball police name for a homemade bomb. then, you know, that's that's a different kind of attack. it's just amazing that someone could get drive all these blocks down bourbon street in a vehicle. i mean, bourbon street is just an iconic street, and i can't believe that somebody could get a vehicle in there. i mean, if those police barricades were those wooden barricades with, you know, orange and white stripes, i mean, you could push those over with your hands. so that's not going to stop any kind of a vehicle. so i don't i don't know what kind of security they were doing there. i think just to close, harry holly, i would say this, you know, we all look at nypd and, and we see how good they can do things like times square. but we have to understand as well is, you know, the nypd has 40,000 officers. i mean, they're special events. team is somewhere near 3000 officers. i mean, when they go in there, i mean, they're not leaving any stone unturned. and

they've got the, you know, the biggest city in the world, and they're going in there and securing that thing. the new orleans chief said she had 300 officers there. now new orleans is not the size of new york, granted, but the resources are different. but nevertheless, you've got a plan for weeks because, you know, there shouldn't be able no one should be able to drive a truck through there, not in any condition. it should be dump trucks and garbage trucks, you know, snowplow trucks, whatever you got that public works department has the city controls, all that. that should be all blocking those streets, and it should block the streets and to a point where, you know, the crowds would thin on canal. i've walked those streets, and i know many people and many americans have. and, you know, bourbon is very dense. bourbon street is very dense. but when you get down to canal, it's larger, it's wider. you can see it there on the feed and, you know, the crowds string out going to various hotels,

going into the crosswalk and the killers, the killers want a target. they want a crowd. and in 1974, it was a terrorism analyst, brian jenkins, who said terrorism is theater, terrorism, theater. and that has held true every day since. brian jenkins they want to go where the crowd is, where the cameras are to get the most impact for their act. they don't want to run over three people. they want to run over 40 people. and that's what happened today. jim cavanaugh, thank you very much. our nbc news law enforcement analyst. it is a grim new year's morning here to begin 2025. in new orleans, as people are focused on the tragedy that has happened. as jim mentioned, some 40 people plowed over by a driver and a truck at a new year's eve celebration just after 3:00 this morning. at least ten people have been killed. dozens of others are in the hospital, including two

police officers who were shot when this suspect, believed to be dead, opened fire on police. there is also now an investigation into a homemade bomb in the area. we expect another update from police in just a few hours. and then later tonight, the sugar bowl is set to begin that huge college football game. so the security precautions continue to be the biggest focus here in new orleans. i want to play for you now, what we heard from the superintendent of the new orleans police department, describing the nightmare that her city is going through today. watch. and because of the intentional mindset of this perpetrator who went around our barricades in order to conduct this, he was hell bent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did, hell bent on creating carnage. still, so many questions now about the motivation of this driver, about the conditions of those victims who survived as ten families now are grieving the loss of their

loved ones here to this start of 2025, we want to take you back now, live to our local nbc station, wdsu, to join them and their continuing coverage. we'll listen in for just a bit. bill street right now. earlier we were on canal and bourbon. i'm going to show you behind me, you can see some people are trying to get to their hotels or get to their jobs. this morning, as people are waking up learning of the severity of the situation, obviously lots of people in a somber mood after they were just here celebrating last night, only to find out about those people who were injured, those multiple people who were died. right now. we confirmed ten people dead following this event and over 30 people in the hospital right now suffering injuriesollowing what happened. again, city leaders are asking that people stay clear of this area in the french quarter while ty conduct their investigation. right now, they're combing through everything. they're looking through security footage, rolling back cameras to see exactly what happened and how this unfolded. we're expecting

to get another update from city leaders at 11 this morning. we're about a few hours out from that, but right now we're going to continue to bring you what we're seeing as this investigation is unfolding back to you. travers. brittany, let's get to umc. aubry killion is standing by with councilman freddie king. as we all know, his district includes the french quarter. aubry. hey, travers. that's right. yeah. we have a live exclusive interview with councilman freddie king. he's met us here at umc. we can't thank you enough for your time. walk me through. what is the most new information you can share? the most new information that i'm aware of is that the fbi is investigating this. this seems to be an act of terror. and the individual who who committed this most likely was not acting alone. they're still trying to find their accomplices and a motive and just more information. as much as fbi and lapd is trying to locate as much

information as possible. so, so it one question we're getting is how drivers can get around right now. what are their options? excuse me. right now i know it's open investigative scene. so i'm not i'm kind of going to defer to nopd and fbi and state police as far as traffic in the quarter. okay. yeah. and you mentioned that they're looking at additional potential people that may have aided the suspect. well, just just was involved, from my understanding, this, this act like this, this person did not do it, do it alone or may have had an accomplice or two. so they're not say they're law enforcement are looking for additional suspects. when you first woke up, you know, i called you. and what was your reaction? that's happening the first day of the year in a city that we all love, right? this is something that you don't hear about happening in new orleans. you read about it in novels. you

see it, see it on on tv and movies. you don't think this happens in our city and we have our own issues with violence, but you just don't see this something of this magnitude happening in this city. it was a shock when i first heard it. my wife woke me up and said, something happened in the french quarter. you kind of go through your mind of what could it be? but then you realize this is possible. you know, a terrorist attack in over ten people killed and dozens hurt, like, wow, not not in this city. so it was it's still a bit shocking. the bollards that are set up in the quarter. do we know how many does the city have? were they put out? how many were put out? do we know how that all went down last night? right now that information is still a bit a bit hazy. i know there are construction. there's construction happening in the seven and 800 block of bourbon. of course, just happened closer to the 1 to 200 block of bourbon. so as far as the bollards there, i'm not quite sure. i'm still getting information in from nopd. our

information that we're getting, the driver was able to drive around the bollard. is that something we need to revisit and change? implement new and tighter security so this never happens again? i would think so. i would think so. i think everything is on the table. public safety for our visitors, for our residents, for our businesses is number one. so whatever it takes to make the city the french quarter safer, i'm all for it. definitely have this conversation with dpw, state police and opd, whoever, whoever. do you think what we have right now is enough? clearly not. but i want to say this when someone has their mind on doing harm and committing acts of violence, sometimes it's hard to stop. you can always prepare, but there are people who are always going to try to figure out how to beat the system and do harm, so we're just going to do the best we can as city leaders to figure out how to keep the city safe. how will this impact the rest of the sugar bowl? sugar bowl people in town? how will this impact the rest of the holiday season? as

far as as far as the french quarter and bourbon, i know again, it's a it's a crime scene and there's a lot happening. i don't know what streets are open, the streets are closed for, you know, for investigation purposes. i want to let people know that nopd did a great job. they're doing a great job keeping us safe again. fbi's is on the scene. state police is on the scene. so we have police officers here keeping us safe. we want to tell everybody to stay vigilant. be aware of your surroundings and try. i know it's hard to see, but try to enjoy yourself as much as possible. but before i go on and just give my condolences to those who lost loved ones and who are mourning this first year, first day of the of the new year, have you had the chance to speak with any of the officers? i know it's kind of fluid, or any of the families that have been impacted by this today. well, i did speak toened captain roberts of the eighth district. and, you know, those officers that were shot, i believe, were of the eight district. and he kind of kept let me know that they're doing fine. and they were the ones who took out the, the, the driver or

the, the, the actor. but i have not spoken to the officers themselves or families of those lost or injured. so the two officers are the ones that were shot. those are the ones that got the driver out of the car. that's that's my understanding there. so the driver was killed and i believe it was an exchange of fire between those officers and the driver. and they did kill the driver. yeah. where were the two officers shot? i'm not sure, but i do not believe it was life threatening. and what were what do you remember most from your conversation? with captain roberts? just saying how quickly his his, his officers responded that, you know, they they definitely saved lives with their quick response. want to thank the men and women of nopd. you know, they always get they often get a get flack and catch a hard time from from just doing their job. but we see today they were quick on the scene, their training kicked in,

and they definitely saved lives. so thank you to the men and women of nopd, state police, all those law enforcement agencies that came together. how will this impact you know, the super bowl is about to happen in our city. how will this impact the super bowl, marardi gras coming up? well, i'm sure you know, shame on us if you don't react to this and make the city safer and make the french quarter safer, there's going to be conversations, i'm sure, all the way on the state level, how to make places safer in the city, how to make sure that ensure that drivers can't easily drive around bollards or through barricades and keep, keep the jewel of our city, which is the french quarter safe. we have hundreds of thousands of visitors coming for new years, coming for the sugar bowl, just always in this city in the french quarter. so we got to figure out how to keep us safe. again, there's no foolproof pla. when someone wants to do something, they're not going to be stopped. but we got to just figure out how to deter them and keep our residents, visitors and

businesses safe. are there any other additional changes you would like to see in the quarter, whether it's, you know, bollards that are larger, is there any other additional changes that you would like to see and can make happen to make people feel safe? i think everything is on the table right now. you don't want to see something like this happen and not react. so we definitely have to see what what works, what doesn't work, and how soon can we get something in place that is going to keep everyone safe as additional bollards? that's additional, additional whatever. officers, we got to figure out a way to keep everyone safe as much as possible, to the best of our ability and as a legislator. and i'm up for the task and i'm going to do my part. when is the last time the fbi is investigating this? when is the last time anything like this, to your knowledge, has happened? you know, to my knowledge, in this city, i can't remember anything. you know, i'm a little

younger than most. so if it happened before me, maybe with the howard johnson shooting or something, i don't know. but in my recollection, it hasn't been. it's been been a while. and your message to the city right now is they're trying to wrap their minds around all this, you know, stay vigilant and just just bear with us as we figure out what happened, why it happened, and how can we prevent this from happening in the future. i want to just again, thank nopd for their quick response. i can't thank those men and women enough. i know they saved lives today, and my hearts and prayers are with those who were injured and who who lost family members today. do you know if any of the victims were children? i don't have that information. no. yeah. i can't thank you enough for your time. i know it's a very difficult situation to process, but we appreciate you coming out and speaking to us. you know, while officers behind us here at umc and many victims are recovering. yes. well, thank you for the opportunity to speak and inform our community. and i get

more information. i'll definitely keep you updated. right. thank you sir. thank you so much. all right. so again, that was councilman freddy king live on wdsu. he says additional safety improvements are needed. those details will still be worked out. but stay with us on this developing story. back to you. we're now joined by randy rousseau in studio. just to kind of recap what aubrey said, that freddie king told him, new orleans has never dealt with an act of terror in a very long time, if ever. but we did host the first super bowl after the nine over 11 terror attack, which happened on september 11th, 2001. we did host the super bowl in february of 2002. we have the super bowl now in just about five weeks. so as freddie king said, the cy, state and feds are probably going to reassess the security package for the super bowl. and i know that you and i were just talking about this, too. the howard johnson attack was probably the last major, you know, event like that that you could probably consider as somewhat of a terrorist attack.

but the fact that someone was just so brazen, you know, we've got so many fans who are in town right now for the sugar bowl, so many georgia fans who were in town last night, notre dame fans that were in town last night, and locals, you know, who are out celebrating the new year. it was, you know, when you wake up and you hear this news that this is happening right here in new orleans, as we are getting ready to prepare to host a super bowl in a matter of months, it's a tough pill to swallow. and not to mention the sheer response from nypd officers. they were prepared. they had folks out there, but there was nothing. ever think to yourself that some guy is going to come roll around ballers and run into a crowd of people in the middle of the french quarter? and, you know, look, on top of that, you speak of the super bowl, the cfp playoff, the eyes of the college football world and sports fans are on new orleans right now. in just about 11 hours. the sugar bowl kicks off tonight. the sugar bowl did release a statement. there is no jeopardy to the game at this point right now. but i think we want to get back to aubrey right now, who is at umc where almost all of these

patients i believe more than 20 were taken. yeah. he joins us now with royce du plessis. so many local leaders. and you have been listening to our local nbc news station, wdsu, who have been conducting continuing coverage since this happened just after 3:00 this morning, a driver believed to be dead, ramming his truck into a crowd of people on bourbon street in the french quarter, killing at least ten, hurting more than 30 others, including two police officers. we opened fire on. they were shot. they are in stable condition, we understand. and there is also that investigation into a homemade bomb as well. i want to bring in now nbc news justice correspondent ken dilanian. and ken, we're getting one of the first images of what allegedly appears to be the pickup truck involved here. i want to show it to people here. you can see it, that white pickup truck. the police superintendent said this driver was hell bent on carnage. and you can see it there, ken. yeah. i can't see the picture you're showing, holly, but i've seen other photos that show a white what looks like a ford f-150 pickup truck with texas plates, and that will tell the

authorities a lot. they'lle able to run down the provenance of that truck. the ownership history potentially where it pied on toll transponders. they will determine exactly where that truck has been in recent hours. and no doubt it's very likely they know the identity of this suspect and are now running down social media connections, talking to relatives, trying to determine a motive here in a case that, again, to recap, the fbi is saying they are investigating as an act of terrorism. that doesn't mean they've determined it is terrorism, but they are investigating it as a potential act of terrorism. and clearly, the authorities are saying that this man intended to kill as many as possible. this was not only a vehicle attack. he then shot two new orleans police officers. and the fbi is saying there were potential bombs, potential improvised explosive devices. so a complex attack that appeared to have taken a lot of planning. and again, you're seeing this white pickup truck with texas plates that was

instrumental to the attack. hallie. and ken, as we know, president biden has been briefed. the attorney general, merrick garland, has been briefed on this. you talk about the fbi investigating this as an act of terror here. explain why that is more than simply a semantic distinction, why that's critical moving forward. yeah. well, and, you know, you knew that it was a huge deal when you saw the fbi in the initial news conference of the day, stand up and say, we're taking control of this investigation. and the local police chief and the mayor essentially said, we're handing this off to the fbi. they would only do that if they had evidence that this was more than just a local matter, a personal grievance. obviously, they knew it was intentional right away, but there's something that they saw that made them think that this was potentially terrorism. that doesn't necessarily mean an overseas connection. it doesn't mean isis inspired. although we have seen isis inspired vehicle attacks in germany and in new york city over the years, it's

potentially related to a domestic extremism or potentially, you know, sort of a motive that we can't define right now. but the fbi taking the lead because they believe that there is there there are indications here of a terrorist motive here, somebody that wanted to inflict mass casualties, to make a point, to send a message, some political or ideological point. that's sort of how the fbi thinks about terrorism. and that's what they're looking at right now. it is possible, ken, and you alluded to this, but to be clear and to say it explicitly here, it is entirely possible that law enforcement knows who this driver is, even if the rest of the public journalists, for example, do not at this point, this investigation could potentially encompass not just the city of new orleans, not just the state of louisiana, but multiple states across wherever this investigation may lead. of course. that's absolutely right, hallie, especially because we're seeing a texas plate on this truck. so that obviously expands the perimeter of this investigation, at least to

texas. but yes, i mean, we've seen this before. sadly, too many times, the fbi and partner federal agencies are now running down every speck of digital dust that this person has left online. and we all have online fingerprints and footprints that we leave, whether he had an active social media profile or not, they will determine a lot of information about this subject. and because he was deceased at the scene, it's very likely that they do have an identity through fingerprints or potentially a wallet in his pocket or potentially the plate, that they're able to run on the truck. and so, yes, there's no doubt that they know a lot of information. hopefully they'll reveal at least some of it at their 11 a.m. briefing, and we'll get more clarity on exactly what was motivating this event. holly. yeah, that briefing set to begin just about twhours and change from now, where we expect to see more updates. can one of the things that we're looking at now and some of these images coming in, we've seen the pickup truck now, we've seen that very short clip. it's just about four seconds long of people running. it

appears to be the immediate aftermath of this truck ramming. you can hear in the background what sounds like gunshots going off. that would place that moment. and you're seeing it here maybe 314, 315 in the morning, obviously, people on the street wrapping up after the ball dropped at midnight in new orleans. there in the early morning hours. it is very scary to watch. and as we heard from an eyewitness who was on the street, he ducked into a nightclub when he heard some of this commotion happening up the street. he says when that car raced down the road, he said, plowing over people, something like 8 to 10 blocks at a very, very fast clip. part of this investigation is going to involve how that car could have been on that road, how it managed to get through several of those blocks. considering how packed the french quarter was at that point. yeah, that's a huge question. and obviously, you know, when this happened in 2017, in new york city, the nypd completely reevaluated how it secured crowded scenes downtown and began deploying heavy trucks, sand trucks and dump trucks at particular events to

try to prevent this kind of thing from happening. it's difficult to second guess the security posture in a place like new orleans, bourbon street, where people have been gathering in large crowds for more than a century. and nothing like this has ever happened before. so clearly they weren't thinking about this kind of possibili. they didn't have the kind of barriers that would have prevented this kind of thing from happening. but you can't fully prevent something like this. that's why it's so horrific. it's just really the most chilling sort of attack, because it's people, when they least expect it, are celebrating, and they're gathered in a city where they expect to be safe. and, you know, there are vehicles all around. and this person had ill intent and was able to overcome whatever barriers they had. that's certainly going to be a question going forward, though. and you can imagine next year when this when people are gathering in bourbon street, there will be a much different security posture. unfortunately, this was a hard lesson that this city had to learn, and hopefully other cities will be looking very closely at how this

happened. ken dilanian, thank you very much. i want to go now to gabe gutierrez, one of our nbc news senior white house correspondents. and gabe, we're learning in just the last few moments that it sounds like president biden has spoken with the mayor of new orleans at least once today already, right? yeah. that's right. hallie. now, president biden has been briefed on the situation here, according to the white house. and, as you said, has spoken with the mayor of new orleans. now, the president being briefed by not just fbi officials, but also senior officials from the department of homeland security and the white house says that he will continue to be briefed throughout the day. now, the president right now in wilmington, delaware, after ringing in the new year there, he attended a private wedding ceremony last night, and he is scheduled to depart for camp david a little later on today. now we are here in south florid, near mar-a-lago, where president elect trump celebrated the new the new year, new year here with a party at his estate. we have not yet heard from the trump

transition yet, but we have reached out. but again, that news that president biden has spoken at least once so far with the mayor of new orleans and plans to continue receiving briefings here throughout the day. hallie, as you know, one of the roles for the president, not just commander in chief, but consoler in chief, and we have not yet received word on wheth or when we might get any official statement from president biden. so far, the white house has not shared any details on any changes to his schedule at all, or whether he might plan to address the public at all as he departs for camp david. hallie gabe gutierrez live for us down there in south florida. gabe, thank you very much. we'll check back in with you if we hear anything else from president biden or from the white house in the hours to come, let's go back now to former secret service special agent evie poumpouras, who is joining us now live. and evie, in the in the lingo of law enforcement, if you will, this is what you call a soft target, right? explain the difficulty in protecting these kinds of places, like what we're seeing and what we saw overnight in the

french quarter. anytime you have an open area like this, multiple ways in and out, it's a soft target, you know, and as we're watching the video footage and i've been paying attention and jotting notes down, you don't really see any hardened security perimeter. you see those those those white and orange half boards. tho are actually called parade barricades. they do nothing. you can kick that over with your foot and it falls down. you see some bike rack again, it's easily movable. i understand that there was police presence. they had about 300 plus officers. here's the thing. when you're dealing with a vehicle, when you're dealing with a vehicle driving like that, it is a very difficult thing to stop that thing. a car is a weapon. a car is a weapon. we are very fortunate that he actually crashed his vehicle. otherwise he would have done more damage. and i do want to push slightly back. i again, i respect my brothers and sisters in law enforcement. but you you are new orleans and this is for everybody out there. we are major cities. you've got thousands and thousands and

thousands of people. and i keep hearing this has never happened here. we just saw this was it two weeks ago happened in germany.y. when these things happen in other places in germany, there was a man who deliberately drove his vehicle, bypassed their barricades, deliberately drove through a christmas market, killing five people, injuring almost 200 people. we must pay attention to these. we have to have a imagination. when it comes to law enforcement. there are 17,000 law enforcement entities in the united states. when i say that different departments, sheriffs, counties, pd's, everybody should be paying attention. everybody should be thinking, i need to be proactive. how can i prevent this stuff? so i, i kindly disagree and that this is a big event. thousands of people, you knowow, it' going to gather people, you know, it's going to gather attention. this is not that soft of a target per se. like you have that awareness and we need to do a better job securing everybody. all these

departments need to be paying attention. look what is going on outside. look at what is happening. we have a responsibility to keep people safe and secure. improvised vehicles, busses. i have used yellow busses, school busses to secure sites. that's right. i went to a town that didn't have the plow trucks. they didn't have sanitation. so i said school busses. you know, those big yellow school busses give me those. and i lined them up to create a perimeter to secure my site. it's called being creative and using our imagination. but we have a duty to people when they come to these events to feel safe and secure. and quite honestly, when i hear like we're surprised, we didn't know we're missing the mark there. the superintendent of the new orleans police department, when she delivered that update, the only one we've gotten officially so far just a couple of hours ago, she said that this driver went around the barricades. to your point here about securing a site, is it is it again, there's

a lot of questions here that we don't know. there is a question about some of the bollard replacement or barricade replacement that had been happening in new orleans ahead of, of course, their hosting of the super bowl just next month. now they've got mardi gras coming up in a couple of weeks here. how would somebody be able to get around barricades if it was to be secure in the way that you described? is it still possible for a motivated individual to be able to conduct an attack like this in that instance with a vehicle? no. if you're putting trucks, plow trucks, sanitation trucks, you're spreading them out. even rmp's radio motor patrol vehicles, which are police vehicles if you're using cement barricades. i'm not talking about the plastic stuff. i'm talking about something that you can't move if you spread them out strategically. yes you can. you know, maybe you can't do the whole area, but you can do the inner perimeter where you've got your maximum amount of people. it's doable. why they didn't do it, i suspect. and again, i don't know what i'm hearing. and as i heard the council person speak before on the local network, we've never had this before. we didn't expect this.

we're we're surprised. you know, i think the public deserves better than that. they really do like our job is to serve and protect and to, you know, part of being in law enforcement is using your imagination. every time i did a security perimeter or did something, i would have to use my imagination. i wouldn't think, how would i secure this as law enforcement? i would think, how would i if i were the bad guy, if i were the bad actor, how would i get in? and then i would reverse engineer it. okay, if i can get in through here, i've got a hole. how do i plug that hole? so i think basicallyly, again, just bashole, based on what we're seeing, just what we see through the shots, parade barricades. it's cardboard.t you can knock over and bike rack. you're seeing it now, there's a bike rack next to that officer. if that's all they put in place, well then, yes, a vehicle is going to be able to get through that. >> i want to point out here the city in 2017, according to nola.com had installed mechanical barriers, steel barriers in the french quarter,