New Orleans attack latest: Police don’t believe any other suspects involved, sources say

(NEW ORLEANS) — The FBI and New Orleans police no longer believe there are any other suspects involved in the New Year’s truck attack on Bourbon Street that killed 15 people and injured dozens more, multiple law enforcement sources told ABC News.

After investigators reviewed all of the surveillance videos more closely, it appears that the suspect, 42-year-old Army veteran Shamsud-Din Jabbar, placed explosive devices in the area himself and then changed clothes. Those clothes were found in the vehicle, the sources said.

The FBI is still investigating whether there were individuals Jabbar spoke to or messaged with prior to the early Wednesday attack, but no one was in the vicinity to help him do anything, the sources said.

Jabbar was “hell-bent” on killing as many people as possible, driving a pickup truck onto the sidewalk around a parked police car serving as a barricade to plow into pedestrians, officials said.

The suspect mowed down dozens of people over a three-block stretch on the world-famous thoroughfare while firing into the crowd, police said.

Jabar then exited the damaged vehicle armed with an assault rifle and opened fire on police officers, law enforcement said. He was also armed with a handgun, sources told ABC News.

Officers returned fire, killing Jabbar, a U.S.-born citizen from Texas, sources said. At least two officers were injured, one by gunfire and the other when the officer was pinned by the truck, authorities said.

New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said security bollards were not working at the time because they were in the process of being replaced for next month’s Super Bowl.

Althea Duncan, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI in New Orleans, said improvised explosives devices and other weapons were found inside the pickup truck used in the attack. She said two additional IEDs were discovered in the French Quarter and rendered safe.

The IEDs found in and around the scene on Bourbon Street were apparently determined to be viable, and investigators were looking for more in the city’s French Quarter, multiple law enforcement sources told ABC News.

Authorities have conducted “a number of court authorized search warrants in New Orleans and other states,” the FBI’s New Orleans field office said.

A home in Houston was among those searched. The FBI in Houston said “there is no threat to residents in that area.”

President Joe Biden said that the FBI told him that “mere hours before the attack, [Jabbar] posted videos on social media indicating that he’s inspired by ISIS, expressing a desire to kill.”

Biden said that the suspect served in the “Army on active duty for many years. He also served in the Army Reserve, until a few years ago.”

The FBI is studying the videos Biden referenced in his remarks, which the suspect appears to have recorded while driving from Texas to Louisiana, law enforcement sources confirmed to ABC News.

The videos are dark so the suspect isn’t seen but he can be heard talking about his divorce and a desire to kill members of his family before ultimately deciding to carry out the attack on Bourbon Street, according to the law enforcement sources.

The suspect is also heard talking about ISIS, the sources said.

Authorities are also working to determine whether there may be a link between the New Orleans attack and a Tesla Cybertruck explosion on Wednesday outside the Trump Las Vegas hotel in Nevada, which is being investigated as a possible act of terror, an official said.

The Cybertruck that exploded was rented via the Turo app, as was the truck used in the New Orleans attack, sources told ABC News.

Biden said law enforcement and the intelligence community were investigating whether there was “any possible connection” between the two attacks.

“Thus far, there’s nothing to report on that score,” Biden said.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.