Tag: new orleans

Suspects in Vegas explosion, New Orleans attack served at same Army base, sources say

The Colorado Springs resident suspected of detonating a Tesla Cybertruck in front of a Las Vegas hotel and the Texas man accused of driving a pickup truck into a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans served at the same military base, sources told Scripps News Denver.

Although sources said officials were investigating the link as a possible connection between the two New Year’s Day attacks, the FBI’s Christopher Raia told reporters that it could not establish a link between the two incidents.

Matthew Livelsberger is accused of renting a Cybertruck in Colorado Springs, driving it to Nevada and packing it with firework mortars and gas cans before exploding it in front of the Trump International Hotel in Vegas Wednesday morning, killing himself and injuring seven others. Shamsud-Din Jabbar is suspected of plowing through a crowd of New Year’s revelers in the French Quarter hours earlier, killing at least 14 and injuring dozens more in an attack that sent shockwaves through a famous New Year’s destination the morning of a scheduled College Football Playoff game.

Both men were confirmed to be Army veterans in the aftermath of the attacks – both of which were being investigated as possible acts of terrorism.

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Houston Mosque Reportedly Attended by New Orleans Terrorist Instructs Members NOT to Speak to the FBI and Refer Them to Radical CAIR

Masjid Bilal ISGH, a mosque in Houston reportedly attended by the New Orleans terrorist Shamsud-Din Jabbar, has instructed its members not to speak to the FBI.

Instead, the mosque advised its congregation to direct law enforcement inquiries to the radicals of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) or the Islamic Society of Greater Houston (ISGH).

Jabbar, a 42-year-old U.S. Army veteran who was discharged from the Army Reserve in 2020 with the rank of staff sergeant, converted to Islam before spiraling into erratic behavior, according to family members who spoke with far-left New York Times.

Dwayne Marsh, married to Jabbar’s ex-wife, noted the suspect’s increasingly bizarre actions, including cutting his hair drastically and displaying erratic behavior that prompted them to restrict his access to his daughters.

Jabbar had moved into a predominantly Muslim neighborhood north of Houston approximately a year ago.

Following the New Orleans attack, FBI investigators descended on the area, including the local mosque, Masjid Bilal ISGH.

Meanwhile, Masjid Bilal ISGH issued a statement to its members that many have criticized as an attempt to obstruct justice.

In a Facebook post, Masjid Bilal ISGH’s leadership instructed its members to avoid speaking to the media and, if approached by the FBI, to refer inquiries to CAIR or ISGH.

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FBI confirms multiple IEDs found in French Quarter, Shamsun-Din Jabbar not ‘solely responsible’ for NOLA terror attack

FBI Spokesperson Aletha Duncan spoke at a press conference on Tuesday afternoon during which she confirmed earlier reports that authorities do not believe that Shamsud-Din Jabbar worked alone in carrying out what is being investigated as a terrorist attack.

“The FBI is the lead investigative agency and we’re investigating this as an attack of terrorism along with our partners,” Duncan said, before describing the incident. The suspect drove an EV Ford F-150 into a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans at about 3:15 am, killing 10 and injuring another 35. “After hitting the crowd, he exited the vehicle and fired upon local law enforcement. Law enforcement returned fire and the subject was pronounced deceased at the scene.”

Duncan said that the Jabbar is a US citizen, born and raised in Texas. He was a US Army veteran. “An ISIS flag was located on the trailer hitch of the vehicle and the FBI is working to determine the subject’s associations and affiliations with terrorist organizations. Weapons and potential improvised explosive devices, IEDs, were located within the subject’s vehicle. Other IEDs were also located in the French Quarter.”

She went on to say that the FBI is working to run down his associates and is seeking to determine if there is a further threat. 

“We do not believe that Jabbar is solely responsible,” Duncan said, “we are aggressively running down every lead including those of his known associates. That’s why we need the public’s help.” She asked that anyone who had been in contact with Jabbar over the past 72 hours to come forward and give any information they may have to the FBI to “assist in this investigation.”

She went on to say that Jabbar was an Army veteran who is believed to be on honorary discharge.

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FOX News Says Truck New Orleans Terrorist Was Driving Was Spotted in US in Eagle Pass, TX by US Border Two Days Ago – First Photo of Terrorist

As Cullen Linebarger reported earlier, a deranged man drove his truck through the packed crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans last night.

Once the vehicle came to a stop the driver jumped out and started firing on the crowd. At least ten people are dead and two police officers are injured.

There are now reports of a suspicious black flag that was attached to the back of truck bed by the terrorist. It is not clear what the flag means at this time but could be the flag of ISIS or another terror group.

Now this…
FOX News reporter David Spunt reported that the truck used in the attack was spotted near the US border with Mexico in Eagle Pass, Texas two days ago!

On New Year’s Day morning Attorney Phil Holloway joined FOX News to discuss the terror attack in New Orleans.

Phil tweeted out that he heard information that the terrorist crossed into the US two days ago.

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“Terrorist Attack” in New Orleans – 12 Dead, Dozens Injured After Individual Intentionally Drives into Crowd – Cops Injured in Gunfight on Bourbon Street

A reported terror attack hit New Orleans this morning with at least 12 people dead and at least 35 injured.

Fox News reported a driver in a white pick-up truck intentionally plowed a car into a crowd of New Year’s gatherers on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, according to authorities.

The driver exited the vehicle and fired a weapon after hitting the crowd. Two police officers were reportedly injured in the gunfight.

There was a significant police presence and emergency vehicles at the scene. The 30 people have been transported to five hospitals.

The suspect died during the gunfight with police. It is unclear at this point if it was suicide by cop or he took his own life.

New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell called the incident a “terrorist attack” at a news conference. FBI Special Agent Aletha Duncan disputed her at the press conference and said this was not confirmed.

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‘They covered up child rape’: how the New Orleans archdiocese protected a priest who preyed on children

In the case of serial child molester and retired Catholic priest Lawrence Hecker, the cover-up failed.

But it wasn’t for lack of trying by a coalition of high-ranking church officials and sympathetic judges, who prioritized the predator’s comfort above justice for his innumerable victims until the evidence against him was so overwhelming that – rather than stand the humiliation of a public trial – he pleaded guilty last Tuesday.

The 93-year-old’s decision not only saddled him with an automatic life sentence. It also exposed how Catholic bureaucrats in Hecker’s home town of New Orleans, one of the church’s strongholds in the US, repeated the same sins that produced an eerily similar scandal in Boston two decades earlier – events later immortalized in the Oscar-winning film Spotlight.

This is the only conclusion to draw from years of reporting and studying the church files, court records, legal proceedings and and law enforcement documents outlining the campaign of terror to which Hecker subjected so many children raised in one of the most reliably Catholic regions remaining in the US.

Files held by New Orleans’s Catholic archdiocese establish that Hecker was molesting children virtually immediately upon his ordination in 1958. Chronologically speaking, one of Hecker’s earliest victims was a preteen altar boy who described attending nude swimming parties with the priest – gatherings that would culminate in sexual assaults by the attacker.

Hecker eventually instructed that boy to bring a box containing a feather to a particular fellow priest at another nearby Catholic school and church. In short order, the second priest sexually attacked the boy – and the victim said he came to realize Hecker had used the feather to mark him as vulnerable to molestation.

Unsurprisingly, Hecker’s superiors became more than aware of his crimes. Accusations against him piled up at each of the major milestones in the US church’s reckoning with Catholic clergy sexual abuse, which began in the 1980s when Louisiana priest Gilbert Gauthe pleaded guilty in criminal court to molesting several boys.

Around that time, then New Orleans archbishop Philip Hannan received a child molestation complaint against Hecker. Hannan’s response – carried out in private – was to fly Hecker to a sabbatical in New York City before letting him return to work once things back home cooled off.

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Jaw-dropping corruption allegations against New Orleans’ Dem Mayor LaToya Cantrell are revealed as FBI continues to probe her

Fresh corruption allegations have been levied against New Orleans’ Democrat Mayor LaToya Cantrell amid an FBI probe into her actions in office, sources say. 

Cantrell, 52, has been under investigation for over two years, with reports claiming she may face charges over allegations that she received gifts in exchange for firing a high-ranking New Orleans official. 

The complex probe has also seen the spotlight fall on police officer Jeffrey Vappie, who faced allegations that he was in a romantic tryst with the mayor, reports NOLA. 

Now, sources told the outlet that Vappie may also be set to face charges, potentially over being paid by the city for hours that he allegedly never worked. 

Allegations against Cantrell date back over two years, and NOLA reported that insiders with knowledge of the investigation believe she may also face charges. 

Cantrell’s office did not immediately return a request for comment. 

It is unclear what exactly these charges may be, and detectives have not publicly stated that they plan on bringing charges against her. 

Vappie’s resignation came after he was suspended when his wages came under scrutiny, at the same time it was alleged in Vappie’s divorce filing that he was carrying out an affair with a woman named only as ‘Mrs. L-C.’ 

Vappie’s ex-wife Danielle claimed that her husband and Cantrell had been carrying out an affair since he began working for her security detail in May 2021. 

The two were spotted dining at a restaurant together in April 2024, and when his wages were put under the microscope, it was reportedly found that he spent over 100 hours at Cantrell’s apartment over a 27-day stretch. 

In 2022, Fox New Orleans also reported that Vappie spent more than five hours of his workday with Cantrell in a publicly owned apartment in the city’s Upper Pontalba section, where they were often spotted together.  

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Archdiocese of New Orleans Suspected of Child Sex Trafficking, Warrant Shows

A criminal investigation into the Archdiocese of New Orleans is based on a suspicion that it may be linked to child sex trafficking, according to allegations presented in a search warrant granted to Louisiana State Police.

The affidavit requesting the search warrant, first obtained by the New Orleans-based WWL Radio, alleges that multiple sex abuse victims provided statements that claim they were transported to other parishes and outside of Louisiana, where they were sexually abused. It further alleges a scheme within the archdiocese in which abused children were instructed to provide “gifts” to certain priests, which were meant to signal that the children were targets for sexual abuse.

According to the allegations in the affidavit, multiple victims reported that they were brought to the New Orleans Seminary, where they were instructed to “swim naked in the pool and would be sexually assaulted or abused.” It also alleges that investigators found that this was “a common occurrence” and that other members of the archdiocese were present. 

“Based on these findings, as well as the allegations of previous widespread child sexual abuse, it was determined that further investigation into the Archdiocese of New Orleans was necessary,” investigator Scott Rodrigue wrote in the affidavit. 

Judge Juana Lombard granted police the search warrant last week, but the allegations in the warrant were not made public until Tuesday, April 30. It allows police to search personnel files, financial records, communications, and other documents related to allegations of sexual abuse.

The warrant acknowledges that the police have probable cause to suspect felony violations of the law that prohibits the “trafficking of children for a sexual purpose.”

Although the allegations contained in the warrant do not indicate when the alleged trafficking occurred, the information that led to a suspicion of sex trafficking was obtained by police during an earlier investigation into a retired priest named Lawrence Hecker, who is accused of raping an underage teenage boy in the 1970s. Father Hecker was indicted for the alleged crime but has not yet been tried.

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New Orleans residents warned ‘don’t sit in your car and play’ as carjackings skyrocket 165%

Carjackings in New Orleans, Louisiana have more than doubled since before the Covid-19 pandemic began nearly three years ago, increasing 165 percent over that period, city data shows.

The city has seen a significant rise in violent crime, including skyrocketing homicides, with the highest per capita rate among cities in the United States. The Big Easy saw 273 carjackings in the last year alone, compared to 103 in 2019. The sharp increase in crime has caused some residents to start taking precautions to avoid being targets, like avoiding using their cell phones while sitting in their cars.

“You try to park close to your house or where you’re going,” Kelly, of New Orleans, told Fox News. “You don’t sit in your car and play on your phone.”

Another woman, Sally, told people that they “have to be aware of what’s going on” at all times when they leave the house.

Other US cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, Chicago, Washington, DC, and Minneapolis have all seen increases in crime. Philadelphia, for example, has seen carjackings increase by nearly 500 percent since 2019, with over 1,300 incidents reported in 2022, the Philadelphia Police Department states.

Crime was so bad in the Pelican state’s largest city last year that the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) had to put a public notice out that it would be hiring civilians to do police work, as cops had left the force in droves. 

NOPD Superintendent Shaun Ferguson said, “As we take calls over the phone, there may be some evidence that needs to be collected with that call. We’ll have civilian investigators go out and collect that evidence instead of an officer having to go out there and collect that evidence.”  

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Dem Mayor Who Blew $30K on First-Class Flights Found Living in Luxury Taxpayer-Funded Apartment

New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, a Democrat, admitted to living in a $3000-a-month luxury apartment rent-free just weeks after being caught blowing $30,000 on first-class fights, all funded by the taxpayer.

Last month, Cantrell was caught spending city funds on first class air travel, saying economy class was ‘unsafe’ for black women.

Cantrell’s opulent apartment is located in the city’s Upper Pontalba building on Jackson Square in the famous district.

The apartment, which has a market rate of $2,991 per month, is owned by the city and managed by the French Market Corp.

A spokesperson for Cantrell said the Mayor had done nothing wrong, arguing that everything is legal according to the city’s terms with French Market Corp.

But despite Cantrell’s spokesperson’s claims, the city’s Metropolitan Crime Commission sent a report asking for an investigation into the Mayor’s use of the apartment.

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