In a scene eerily familiar to one in Germany just weeks prior, an Army veteran wreaked havoc on innocent families in New Orleans on New Year's Eve when he sped around a makeshift barricade and ran over numerous people. In total, American Army veteran Shamsud-Din Jabbar killed fourteen people and injured about 30 more. Mr. Jabbar was then killed in a shootout with the police.

Last week, six people injured in the attack and the father of a man killed by the terrorist filed a lawsuit in the Orleans Parish Civil District Court against the city of New Orleans and two contractors. They allege the city and contractors failed to protect the crowds from the violent attack.

The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified damages. Alexis Windham had impact and gunshot injuries to her foot and Corian Evans, Jalen Lilly, Justin Brown, Shara Frison and Gregory Townsend all suffered broken bones and other injuries. Brandon Taylor was killed by the attacker and is represented in the lawsuit by his father Joseph Taylor.

In their legal complaint filed with the court, the plaintiffs claim the attack was preventable and left them with physical injuries and mental suffering, as well as the loss associated with the death of one of the plaintiff’s children.

At the time of the attack, the army veteran traveled down the popular Bourbon Street at high speed, killing and maiming victims along the way. The suit alleges that the city of New Orleans and two contractors did not take the appropriate actions to protect the public.

The incidence of trucks and cars ramming into crowds as weapons has been on the rise. Just a week prior to the New Year’s Eve attack in New Orleans, a man drove an SUV into a crowded Christmas Village in Magdeburg, Germany, killing five people, including a child, and injuring 200 revelers, with 41 seriously injured.

The Louisiana lawsuit notes that attacks such as these are becoming more commonplace, and the documents referenced the 2016 attack on Bastille Day in Nice. France, where 86 people were run down and killed by terrorists. Court documents reported that the city of New Orleans looked into ways to mitigate the risk of this type of attack and invest about $40 million in numerous public safety projects.

These safety projects, the plaintiffs said, included portable bollards, which are columns that protect people from vehicles, and would be used to prevent vehicles from driving on Bourbon Street. Court documents state that in 2019, a report by Interfor International warned that the city of New Orleans in the French Quarter was at risk for this kind of attack. The report stated that “the current bollard system on Bourbon Street does not appear to work” and that these bollards should be corrected promptly.

A design firm hired for the New Orleans Road project released a report in April 2024 and noted the possibility of a “Ford F-150 truck” turning onto Bourbon Street, which is precisely what occurred during the terrorist attack on December 31. However, the court documents allege, the construction company doing the work to replace the bollards did not include fixing the French Quarter bollards.

The terrorist indeed drove an F-150 pickup truck onto the sidewalk to get around a police SUV and other blockades at the Canal Street entrance to Bourbon Street on that fatal night.

The plaintiffs said the safety updates on Canal Street had begun in November but that the actual work only started on December 19, and that the construction was “ongoing” when the terrorist attack occurred on New Year's Eve.

Court documents claim the city of New Orleans and two contractors did not create an effective system for deterring an attack as occurred on New Years Eve.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs allege, “Appropriate barriers, temporary or otherwise, were not erected in the construction site. As a result, the intersection had the appearance of a soft target. Upon initial penetration, Mr. Jabbar was able to travel approximately three blocks down Bourbon Street.”

Currently, about twenty-four more victims are working on possible new lawsuits, and their attorneys said they believe “officials were tragically aware and did not protect the public.”