UPDATE: Driver slams car into New Year’s crowd in New Orleans: 15 killed, archbishop offers prayers

FBI investigators arrive at the scene where a pickup truck crashed into a work lift after allegedly driving into a crowd of New Year’s revelers in the French Quarter of New Orleans on Jan. 1, 2025. / Credit: MATTHEW HINTON/AFP via Getty Images

CNA Staff, Jan 1, 2025 / 11:50 am (CNA).

Archbishop Gregory Aymond of New Orleans offered prayers Wednesday morning after the driver of a pickup truck drove into a crowd of people at a New Year’s celebration on the city’s famed Bourbon Street, killing at least 15 and injuring dozens of others. The incident is being investigated by the FBI as an act of terrorism, according to the Associated Press.

“Our prayers go out to those killed and injured in this morning’s horrific attack on Bourbon Street,” Aymond said in a brief statement released on the archdiocese’s website and Facebook page. “This violent act is a sign of utter disrespect for human life.”

According to police, the driver — who was identified by the FBI on Wednesday afternoon as 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, a U.S. citizen from Texas — sped through a crowd on Bourbon Street at about 3:15 a.m. Wednesday as partygoers were celebrating the start of the new year. At least 15 people were killed and 35 others were injured and taken to five area hospitals. After the vehicle stopped, the suspect reportedly exchanged gunfire with police and was killed, the AP reported. At least two officers were wounded and taken to a local hospital.

“I join with others in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans in offering prayerful support to the victims’ families,” Aymond’s statement continued. “I give thanks for the heroic duty of hundreds of law enforcement and medical personnel in the face of such evil.”

Police Commissioner Anne Kirkpatrick said the driver was “hell-bent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did” and tried “to run over as many people as he could,” according to the AP.

Officials said the truck Jabbar drove had on it a flag of the Islamic State. The vehicle also had weapons and a “potential” explosive device, the New York Times reported, and other potential explosives were found in the French Quarter.

The city of New Orleans is host to this year’s college football Sugar Bowl game between No. 2-ranked Georgia and No. 3 Notre Dame. On Wednesday afternoon it was announced that the game, which was scheduled to be played that evening, would be postponed, the Times reported.

Wednesday’s incident comes a couple of weeks after a car driven by a Saudi Arabian immigrant rammed into a crowd at a Christmas market in the central German city of Magdeburg, killing five people, according to media reports.

This story was updated on Jan. 1, 2025, at 1:57 p.m. ET with information on the identity of the driver, at 2:26 p.m. ET with information about the Sugar Bowl, and at 6:14 p.m. ET with the updated death toll.