Jan. 7 (UPI) — Louisiana officials are undertaking an extensive review of the New Year’s Day attack that killed at least 14 and injured dozens more, state Attorney General Liz Murrill told the media Tuesday afternoon.
Murrill conducted a 14-minute news conference and said mistakes were made that enabled Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, to pull off the attack that ended when three police officers shot and killed him early Wednesday morning.
“We could have done it differently,” Murrill said of city and state efforts to protect tourists, residents and others when the attack occurred at 3:15 a.m. local time.
“This city is a known target for terrorist attack,” Murrill said. “It has a great sort of love of life and expresses that through music, through festivals and through communal sharing events.
“There is kind of a general resistance to some of the boundaries that we need to establish for a greater sense of security for people to continue to enjoy that kind of lifestyle.”
Murrill said it’s important to balance the need for effective precautions and boundaries to enable people to continue to enjoy the “essence” of New Orleans.
Murrill said the press is doing a “good job” of uncovering information regarding lax security measures, such as ensuring installed bollards are in good working condition to stop assailants from driving vehicles onto sidewalks to get around street obstacles.
New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick on Wednesday told news media that Jabbar defeated the city’s security measures by driving onto the sidewalk to access Bourbon Street.
Jabbar was able to do that because the city removed protective bollards in order to replace them prior to Super Bowl LIX, which is scheduled on Feb. 9 at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans.
Bollards are posts that create effective barriers against vehicles such as the rented pickup truck Jabbar used during the New Year’s Day attack.
They commonly are placed in front of entrances to retail stores to prevent thieves from ramming the doors to gain access while businesses are closed.
A city report issued in 2017 cited FBI warnings regarding Bourbon Street as a potential terrorism target, which prompted New Orleans officials to install bollards to protect pedestrians against potential ramming attacks by motorists.
Murrill said her office is undertaking a review of the Jan. 1 terrorist attack to determine what went wrong and how to fix the problems to prevent future attacks. She has ordered the Louisiana Bureau of Investigation to lead the state’s examination of the terrorist attack that Jabbar carried out by himself.
“We cannot be scared to take a really hard look at how we got here,” Murrill told media.
“That’s not a process that’s necessarily designed to blame anybody,” she said. “It’s a process so that we can critically evaluate how we got here and to make sure we never end up here again.”
Murrill said she expects her office to prepare a preliminary report before the Louisiana Legislature resumes session, which is scheduled to start on April 14.
A more in-depth report will be presented “months after that,” she added.
The report will examine “patterns, conduct and the way we’ve done business in the city and handled things,” Murrill said.
“We just have to look at all of those things and evaluate what about that needs to change,” she said.
Regarding accountability for potential errors made leading up to the New Year’s Day attack, Murrill said, “There’s plenty of time for that conversation.”
She said city officials are fully cooperating with her office to investigate the matter and her office’s report will collectively pull together information from other reports that other city, state and federal agencies might compile to provide a full picture of the lead-up to the attack and how it was carried out.
She said the report will examine potential structural changes that will be permanent.
“We need to be thinking about what needs to stay as a permanent fixture for security for this city,” Murrill said, “and whether attitudes need to change, whether cooperation needs to change, whether political structure needs to change, whether individuals need to change. All of that is on the table.”
Jabbar was a U.S. Army veteran who recently swore allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and was carrying an ISIS flag in the back of the rented pickup that he used to carry out the New Year’s Day attack.
