The head of the New Orleans Police district covering the French Quarter acknowledged on Monday the lack of secondary defenses on the street, days after Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said in a news conference that police cruisers were stationed as barriers at Bourbon Street intersections to block just such an attack.
Most of the attack's victims were killed on portions of the street that would have been protected by at least one — and as many as three — cars scattered along Bourbon had they been positioned where they were called for in prior security plans for the French Quarter from 2017 and where Kirkpatrick said they were stationed.
According to video footage of the attack, the vast majority of injuries and deaths occurred in the second and third blocks of Bourbon Street where the crowds would have had at least some protection had bollards been installed or vehicles been positioned to replace them.
The city installed bollards in 2017 at the entrance of and along Bourbon Street after vehicle ramming attacks in Europe killed dozens, but those internal and external bollards have been broken for years, according to city officials and residents. The bollards in the path of the attack were removed before the crash and are in the process of being replaced.
But without a bollard or police vehicle, there was nothing to protect crowds of people as the truck barreled toward them. In one instance, a group of victims was struck while standing on the spot those defenses had once been installed.
Kirkpatrick's erroneous comments were due to a misunderstanding about what measures were in place on New Year's Eve and at other major events, said NOPD Capt. LeJon Roberts, the commander of the police district that includes the French Quarter. Vehicles intended to prevent traffic from heading toward Bourbon were in place on side streets, but those were about a block away from the intersections Jabbar raced past in his F150.
"The superintendent misunderstood and mentioned it wrong," Roberts said in response to questions from The Times-Picayune about Kirkpatrick's comments based on video evidence of the attack. "She just named the wrong street."
Only a single line of defense
The placement of barriers along Bourbon Street has been a significant focus in the aftermath of Jabbar's attack, in which 14 people were killed and dozens were injured when he struck them with his truck as he barreled down the road. In order to carry out the attack, he had to maneuver around the SUV at Canal Street by driving on the sidewalk.
"That was our plan and we figured that nobody would defeat that," Robert said. "No body anticipated this guy was going to drive onto the sidewalk."
In prior years, City Hall officials had included several layers of defenses in their plans, something experts argue is crucial to ensure an attacker can be stopped even if one measure fails as it did last week. Such failsafes were built into the French Quarter security plan put in place in 2017, which included installing the lines of bollards at multiple Bourbon Street intersections specifically to prevent the kind of tragedy that unfolded on New Year's Day.
In recent days, some security experts have strongly criticized the city for failing to secure the sidewalk against threats.
"You never have a gap that is big enough for a car to drive through, ever," said Rob Reiter, a security consultant. "People have figured this out a long time ago."
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Kirkpatrick repeatedly told reporters that NOPD vehicles had been stationed where the existing bollards are, a temporary alternative while the new system is being installed. She also said there were other barriers, in addition to the vehicles.
"We have been aware of the bollard situation for a long time, and we did indeed harden those target areas where the bollards are," Kirkpatrick said in a press briefing in the afternoon after the attack.
Asked in a brief interview the next day if NOPD cruisers had been stationed all along Bourbon Street, in addition to the Canal Street entrance, Kirkpatrick replied "yes ... where the bollards were, we did have patrol cars."
Asked if the vehicles were in every existing bollard location, Kirkpatrick replied "I think so."
"That's my understanding," Kirkpatrick said. "That's the typical thing we would have."
Fear of damage keeps police vehicles off Bourbon
But Roberts said that the city never stations vehicles on Bourbon. Instead, cruisers are parked blocking the intersections of the side streets, away from the main strip, near Dauphine and Royal streets.
Those vehicles are intended to prevent traffic from trying to drive toward Bourbon but can be moved if ambulances or other emergency vehicles need to get past, he said.
Security plans for the Quarter do not call for stationing vehicles on Bourbon Street itself, because of concerns that rowdy crowds could damage them, Roberts said.
"People jump on them, we've seen that happen," Roberts said. "At times, like during protests, we've seen vehicles vandalized or defaced."
Previous security plans specifically accounted for the possibility that an attacker might get onto Bourbon Street and included layers of defenses at each intersection to complicate the progress that could be made. Under those plans, bollards would have been deployed at either side of the first two intersections Jabbar passed at Iberville Street and Bienville Street.
"We put bollards at the front and back of each block, thus sort of allowing us to isolate blocks or create a layered approach to security," said Aaron Miller, the city's former Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness director. "So that in the event there was a breach, you would have additional layers of protection that could either stop or slow down an attack and provide first responders the opportunity to engage the subject."
Barriers could have complicated attack
Contractors have removed the old bollards and are in the process of replacing them, though the new system would not have been strong enough to stop the attacker's truck, according to crash test ratings.
Had there been a second barrier capable of stopping Jabbar in the first block of Bourbon, the attack might have played out much differently.
There were only a few small groups of people still around the Canal Street intersection when the attack began. Late night crowds don't tend to congregate near the entrance to Bourbon Street, which is mostly made up of restaurants and other businesses that shut their doors relatively early in the evening.
But even though the attack came more than three hours after midnight, larger crowds were still out in the next two blocks. That's where crowds might have had some more protection had bollards been in place, or police vehicles positioned in their locations.
The only things standing in the truck's way at those intersections, however, were the steel barricades NOPD places on parade routes to keep crowds from spilling into the street. Designed to corral people, and not stop cars, Jabbar's truck smashed through at least one of those, leaving a shower of sparks as it dragged it down the street.
While Jabbar potentially could have avoided some of those barriers the final bollards he would have encountered would have proved difficult to evade. Located near Arnaud's, those barriers covered the entire width of the street and were positioned between gallery poles that would have complicated efforts to drive onto the sidewalk.
Beyond the bollards, NOPD also has access to wedges that can be placed so they span the width of the street and can be raised to block access and "archers," metal barriers that are now deployed on French Quarter sidewalks in the aftermath of the attack, Roberts said. The wedges were not used on New Year's because they tend to malfunction, he said. And he added the archers have traditionally only been used to block streets and not pedestrian areas, something that's backed up by security plans from prior years.
Asked about the backup measures in place during the attack, Roberts noted there was a heavy police presence in the Quarter to deter or respond to anything that occurred. Federal officials on Sunday credited officers with preventing Jabbar from setting off explosives by shooting and killing him quickly after he crashed.
"We had officers saturating every block. That's our second layer" of protection, Roberts said.
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