FBI concerned about copycat potential after deadly New Orleans attack

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: The Guardian

Fri 3 Jan 2025 12.54 EST
Last modified on Fri 3 Jan 2025 13.02 EST


US law enforcement and intelligence agencies are reportedly concerned about copycat vehicle-ramming attacks following the attack in New Orleans by a US military veteran, Shamsud-Din Jabbar. According to a bulletin seen by Reuters, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the US National Counterterrorism Center “are concerned about possible copycat or retaliatory attacks”.

Such attacks “are likely to remain attractive for aspiring assailants given vehicles’ ease of acquisition and the low skill threshold necessary to conduct an attack”, the bulletin issued to US law-enforcement agencies said.

The bulletin was issued a day after the FBI said Jabbar, a 42-year-old Texas native, was “100% inspired” by the Islamic State militant group to drive a truck into New Year’s Day revelers in New Orleans, killing at least 14 people and injuring dozens of others. The warning advised law-enforcement personnel and private security firms to be aware that in many previous cases attackers who rammed vehicles into crowds were armed and continued their attacks with guns or “edged weapons”.

The New York Times reported that a confidential security report had warned in 2019 that Bourbon Street, where the New Year’s Day attack occurred, was vulnerable to a “vehicular ramming”.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/03/new-orleans-copycat-attacks

[multireeds]

1. Time to prohibit

private autos from all inner cities.

[LauraInLA]

2. I read earlier that 1) the Feds warned on Dec. 6 of potential ramming attacks in U.S. cities, and

2) that New Orleans had removed their barriers in order to replace them. Everyone should be paying attention.