NEW ORLEANS, La. — As the Sugar Bowl got underway in New Orleans, Channel 2 Sports Director Zach Klein spoke to SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey about the terror attack on the city that killed 15 people and injured dozens.
Klein said the atmosphere around the city has had a major shift from everyone with their heads down to blaring music along Bourbon Street, Georgia cheerleaders wearing their paint, wearing the red and black, cheering for their Georgia Bulldogs, all trying to support their team and move on.
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Sankey told Klein that the game between Notre Dame and Georgia was a very important moment to get back to everyday life.
“How do you process now? And how do you process tomorrow? After it’s over, my morning run has taken me around the French Quarter the last two days and yesterday, without understanding the scope, just being shocked at the size of the area. I think this moment gives us a chance to come back together, honor people, but also return to life, and that’s part of our responsibility as well,” Sankey said.
UGA Head Football Coach Kirby Smart also praised police for the job they have done since the attack.
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“It was saddening, scary. I first want to thank the first responders who have done such a tremendous job keeping the city safe since then and doing what they do. And these kids want to come play a football game and do what they want to do, and they got an opportunity to do that today,” Smart said.
Following an afternoon news conference, police reopened Bourbon Street Thursday, which looked more like a war zone just 24 hours prior after a man drove a pickup truck around barricades and into the crowded street.
The FBI revealed that the driver, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, an American citizen from Texas, posted five videos on his Facebook account in the hours before the attack in which he proclaimed his support for the militant group and previewed the violence that he would soon unleash in the famed French Quarter district.
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The attack plans also included the placement of crude bombs in the neighborhood in an apparent attempt to cause more carnage, officials said. Two improvised explosive devices left in coolers several blocks apart were rendered safe at the scene. Other devices were determined to be non-functional.
Officials examined the possibility that individuals seen in surveillance video standing near one of the coolers may have been somehow involved in the attack. But authorities concluded that they were not connected “in any way,” though investigators still want to speak with them as witnesses, Raia said.
Investigators were also trying to understand more about Jabbar’s path to radicalization, which they say culminated with him picking up a rented truck in Houston on Dec. 30 and driving it to New Orleans the following night.
The FBI recovered a black Islamic State flag from his rented pickup and reviewed five videos posted to Facebook, including one in which he said he originally planned to harm his family and friends, but he was concerned that news headlines would not focus on the “war between the believers and the disbelievers,” Raia said. He also left a last will and testament, the FBI said.
Jabbar joined the Army in 2007, serving on active duty in human resources and information technology and deploying to Afghanistan from 2009 to 2010, the service said. He transferred to the Army Reserve in 2015 and left in 2020 with the rank of staff sergeant.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
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