An FBI agent takes a photograph on Bourbon Street in New Orleans after officials say a driver killed at least 14 people driving into the crowded street in the early hours of New Year’s Day. President Joe Biden has pledged continued federal assistance in the investigation. (Photo by Michael DeMocker/Getty Images)

NEW ORLEANS – As concerns have mounted over the city’s anti-terrorism protocols in light of last week’s deadly truck attack on Bourbon Street, local and state officials have both promised official investigations.

This week, the New Orleans City Council, which announced its own investigation on Friday, is set to hold its first hearing on the attack.

Officials from Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s administration are set to answer questions Wednesday about the city’s security preparations during a joint meeting of the council’s public works and criminal justice committees.

The meeting comes one week after 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar turned a rented pickup truck off Canal Street and onto Bourbon Street, climbing up onto the sidewalk and around a parked police SUV before racing down the street and plowing into dozens of pedestrians, ultimately killing 14 people and injuring dozens more. Jabbar died in a shootout with police after wounding two officers in the exchange. The FBI has labeled the incident an act of terrorism.

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The attack has raised concerns about potential security lapses, particularly the lack of physical barriers along the city’s busiest tourism corridor, in spite of earlier warnings that the street was vulnerable to such a breach..

Bollards installed along Bourbon Street during Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s administration never worked properly, according to a 2019 report assembled by a security firm, and were being replaced. A wedge barrier across Bourbon Street was not deployed on Jan 1. The city had access to steel Archer barriers, that can be used along roadways and sidewalks, but New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick admitted after the attack that she was not aware of them.

Though a police car was blocking Bourbon at the intersection of Canal Street, Jabbar was able to maneuver around the vehicle via the sidewalk and race down Bourbon Street. There were no such vehicles placed along Bourbon at the next two intersections, Iberville Street and Bienville Street. And Jabbar continued along Bourbon Street for at least three blocks before crashing into a crane.

According to the meeting agenda, representatives from the Department of Public Works and the New Orleans Police Department will participate in a discussion to “address security measures, including all barriers available to limit roadways and sidewalk access.”

Security experts have raised concerns about the lack of barriers, including on sidewalks, that could have prevented Jabbar from accessing and speeding down Bourbon Street.

“Closing off the sidewalk, making sure you can’t drive around it, is critical,” Jeffrey Halaut, an expert on designing vehicular barriers, told Verite News. “That was probably the biggest failure they had there.”

At the time of the attack, no bollards were blocking off Bourbon Street because the existing ones, first installed in 2017 following a vehicular terror attack in Nice, France, were being replaced with removable, stainless steel bollards. However, according to Halaut, unlike the old ones, the new bollards are not designed to withstand high-speed crashes involving high-weight vehicles like Jabbar’s. And further, the city does not appear to have a plan for blocking sidewalks to prevent a vehicle from circumventing the new bollards.

“I think the path that they’re going down is not the proper path,” Halaut said. “I don’t see [the new bollards] as a type of anti-terrorism solution.”

Wednesday’s hearing will not be the end of the scrutiny from the City Council. Council President Helena Moreno last week announced that the council will be launching a full investigation, creating a separate committee to look into the attack.

This committee will “play a crucial role in assessing our current policies, enhancing security measures and ensuring we are adequately prepared to respond to any future threats,” she wrote in a memo to Councilmember JP Morrell. According to council staff, that committee will be assembled and created at Thursday’s regular meeting.

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill has also launched an investigation into the security plans for New Year’s Eve and the Sugar Bowl. She has ordered the Louisiana Bureau of Investigation to review operational failures, existing security assessments and other aspects of the city’s security plans.

“We are committed to getting a full and complete picture of what was done or not done, and more importantly, what needs to change so we can prevent this from ever happening again,” Murrill said in a statement.

Neither the city council nor the attorney general’s office could provide an estimated timeline for their investigations.

Putting in place adequate security measures is particularly important as New Orleans gears up for the Super Bowl in February and nearly two months of Carnival festivities, culminating in Mardi Gras in March.

Mayor LaToya Cantrell announced Monday that the city had been given a Special Event Assessment Rating of Level 1, the highest level, for the Mardi Gras season, which will enable the city to access additional federal resources in event planning.

The Mayor’s Office and the New Orleans Police Department did not respond to requests for comment in time for publication.

‘Safer for everyone’

In the meantime, residents and workers of the French Quarter have raised concerns over what safety measures the city will pursue in the short and long term – and whether the city will put more effort into assuring tourists that it is safe for them to travel to the Quarter than ensuring that the safety of the people who live and work there.

“I think the concerns of tourists and the concern for tourism, in general, are way more at the top of city officials’ lists rather than keeping people safe in the Quarter,” Sam Heth, a server at Cane and Table in the French Quarter, said in a Monday interview.

“Sometimes it feels like things are more done in an effort to make things look appealing to people who are here just for, like, a weekend or a week, as opposed to safer for everyone,” she added.

Heth, who commutes to work on her bicycle, said infrastructural improvements —  better bollards, more streetlights and more speed bumps — would help her feel safer in the Quarter.

Robin Roberts, who has lived on Governor Nicholls Street in the Quarter for 20 years, also expressed concerns about how the city can better ensure safety year-round in the Quarter by protecting pedestrians.

“I’ve always thought a pedestrian French Quarter is better, and I think it would also be safer because cars obviously can be used as weapons,” Roberts told Verite News.

But she said that she did not blame the city for the lack of bollards, saying that Jabbar clearly had a strong desire to do harm and would have pursued it by any means necessary, including by planting explosives, as he did. Investigators have identified two separate improvised explosive devices planted in coolers: one at the intersection of Bourbon Street and St.. Peter Street and another at the intersection of Bourbon Street and Toulouse Street.

Still, Roberts hopes the city will focus on safety everywhere, not just in the French Quarter.

“We have a lot of crime elsewhere, so can’t just be all about the French Quarter,” Roberts said. “I mean, regular people deserve safety. Every person, every New Orleanian, deserves safety in their neighborhood.”

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This article first appeared on Verite News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.