Flowers are placed Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025, at a memorial site on Bourbon Street in New Orleans near where 14 people were killed early Wednesday in a terrorist attack. The large yellow barrier is one of four that were placed on each side of hydraulic gate installed across Bourbon Street a day after Shamsud-Din Jabbar sped down three blocks before crashing and being killed in a shootout with police. (Greg LaRose/Louisiana Illuminator)
NEW ORLEANS – The New Orleans City Council launched a formal investigation Thursday into the city’s handling of its street barrier systems, which are meant to deter the type of terrorist attack that occurred on Bourbon Street early New Year’s Day.
The investigation, announced last week, is meant to determine how the city’s busiest tourist thoroughfare was left without adequate physical barriers on Jan. 1, allowing Shamsud-Din Jabbar to plow into scores of pedestrians celebrating the holiday.
The council also plans to look into the replacement of old barriers along Bourbon Street — a project currently underway — with new ones that were not designed to withstand an attack like the one that occurred last week.
The probe will examine all aspects of the systems, from their design to how they were procured and installed to how they were operated and maintained – and most importantly, who is in charge of them.
“This is an ongoing legislative and security review of what was going on, what has happened and how we got to this point,” Council President JP Morrell said at the meeting. “We are going to act as efficiently and expeditiously as possible, but we are not on anyone’s timeline. Our goal is to get facts and the truth.”
The absence of permanent, physical street barriers on Bourbon Street has become a point of contention following a New Year’s Day terror attack on the tourist hub.
Jabbar, 42, drove a pickup truck around a police car parked at the intersection of Bourbon and Canal streets, then raced three blocks down Bourbon Street, killing 14 people and injuring dozens more before crashing into a parked crane.
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Though the city installed retractable bollards along Bourbon during former Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s administration, they were being replaced when the attack happened. The city had access to other types of anti-vehicle barriers, including portable Archer barriers that can be used along both streets and sidewalks, but those were not deployed. So Jabbar did not encounter any barriers capable of stopping the truck during his killing spree.
The bollards, installed in 2017, were part of an explicit effort to prevent vehicular ramming attacks like the kind seen the year before in Nice, France. But according to a 2019 report assembled by a security firm, those bollards had never worked properly, in part because they were poorly maintained after being jammed with Mardi Gras beads.
Still, it would be five years before the city set about replacing them, beginning construction on a new set of bollards in November 2024, with construction to continue through February 2025, just before the city is set to host the Super Bowl. And these new bollards, some security experts say, are even weaker than the old bollards – not designed to withstand high-speed, high-weight crashes from a vehicle like Jabbar’s but rather to protect storefronts from accidental collisions.
“I think the path that they’re going down is not the proper path,” Jeffrey Halaut, an expert on designing vehicular barriers, previously told Verite News. “I don’t see [the new bollards] as a type of anti-terrorism solution.”
NOPD chief refuses to answer questions about how terrorist attack could have been prevented
The council investigation will dive into the engineering specifications and security evaluations of the street barrier systems installed along Bourbon Street. But the council is also hoping to find an answer to one fundamental question: Who is in charge of holding and deploying these security assets?
“This is a very simple request: How does it work? Who’s in charge? What happens?” Giarrusso said. “I specifically asked yesterday for the governance, and nobody from the administration has contacted me about that.”
Over the past few days, there’s been disagreement over whether the responsibility for the barriers lies with the New Orleans Police Department, the Department of Public Works or the Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.
City law allows the council to investigate the operations of any city agency. Over the past few years, the council has opened investigations into an Entergy subcontractor’s hiring of actors to appear at council meetings to voice support for a new power plant; allegations of bid-rigging in Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s failed “smart cities” initiative; and the Mayor’s Office’s alleged use of public funds to produce political mailers that were sent out across the city.
As in those previous probes, the council will be able to subpoena witnesses and compel the production of documents. A non-exhaustive list of potential witnesses appears in Thursday’s council resolution to commence the investigation. It includes Cantrell’s top deputy Gilbert Montaño, New Orleans Office of Homeland Security Director Collin Arnold, Department of Public Works Director Rick Hathaway and Hard Rock Construction — the city contractor on the bollard replacement project — among others.
Before the council approved the resolution, Morrell added an amendment making all records the council receives during the course of the investigation confidential.
“When you’re doing one of these very long-form, in-depth investigations, when information gets out prematurely, conclusions can be made that are completely wrong,” Morrell said.
Verite News asked Morrell’s office for an explanation of how the amended resolution comports with the state public records law, which generally makes all government records open except in cases where state law says they should be confidential. Neither Morrell nor his staff immediately responded.
The public records law does contain an exemption for records being used in open legislative investigations, but it appears to apply only to the state Legislature. Another provision makes government records containing certain sensitive security information confidential, but it’s not clear that would allow the council to place a preemptive hold on records that the council has yet to obtain, let alone review.
Not about finger-pointing, council members say
The agenda’s resolution does not explicitly name Kirkpatrick as a potential witness – though she can still be compelled to participate in the investigation. Kirkpatrick has previously said that she plans to participate in all investigations into the attack – including one ordered by Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill.
Kirkpatrick came under fire at a council hearing Wednesday called by Councilman Oliver Thomas, who lambasted the police chief for not answering questions about whether any security reports were available about the city’s safety assets, such as vehicle-blocking barriers.
Kirkpatrick refused both to answer questions about the attack at the Wednesday meeting. But she announced that she was bringing on former New York Police Commissioner William Bratton to assess the city’s security plans.
Thomas, who is mulling a run for mayor, called the meetinga “fact-finding mission,” saying it was not part of the council investigation. (He acknowledged by the end of the contentious meeting that few facts were actually found.)
New Orleans tourism economy hopes for stability after terrorist attack
At Thursday’s meeting, councilmembers repeatedly emphasized that the purpose of the council investigation was to bolster security on Bourbon Street going forward, not to find a scapegoat for the attacks.
“I think it’s really important for everyone to understand that this investigation isn’t about finger-pointing,” Council Vice President Helena Moreno said. “It’s about really having a unified effort to find solutions moving forward.”
As it stands, there is no estimated timeline for the investigation. Morrell and his team have emphasized that it will likely not be done before the end of Mardi Gras.
“The public should know that this is a legislative investigation to review security concerns regarding certain security infrastructure,” said Monet Brignac-Sullivan, director of communications for Morrell. “Just like the Council’s previous investigation, this endeavor will be highly analyzed and detailed. We will keep the public updated as much as possible throughout this process, but we also emphasize that this will take time and that we ask for your patience.”
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This article first appeared on Verite News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.