(The Center Square) – New Orleans officials reopened Bourbon Street on Thursday afternoon a day after a truck was driven into a crowd leaving 15 dead and 35 injured.
New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick, the city’s police chief, said the famous entertainment district in New Orleans would be reopened since Shamsud-Din Jabbar acted alone.
“He was a lone actor,” Kirkpatrick said. “Therefore, we are confident we can reopen Bourbon Street and the rest of our city.”
Kirkpatrick also said the area would have enhanced security in the form of heavy trucks and yellow archer barricades protecting pedestrians.
She admitted during her news conference that she was originally unaware of the archers’ existence.
The area will be open for those attending the Sugar Bowl, pitting Georgia and Notre Dame in the quarterfinals of the College Football Playoff, in the Caesar’s Superdome. The game, postponed from Wednesday because of the fatalities and security concerns, was scheduled for a 3 p.m. kickoff local time.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said in a post on X that the Sugar Bowl needed to go forward. She had said earlier on both NBC and Fox that she believed it needed to be delayed another day.
“This was always a game-time decision,” Murrill said. “I believe New Orleans is very secure. We can honor the lives that were lost by not bowing down to fear brought on by a cowardly terrorist attack.”
Jabbar, 42, an American citizen and U.S. Army veteran from Houston, rented the F-150 Lightning truck, the FBI said. Alethea Duncan, an assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s New Orleans field office, said at a news conference on Wednesday that the agency thought “he wasn’t acting alone.”
Jabbar drove into a group of revelers at 3:17 a.m. and got out of the truck, exchanging gunfire with New Orleans Police Department officers, injuring two of them, before Jabbar succumbed from his wounds, the FBI and local officials said.