America is reeling after the deadliest mass murder in over a year. A former Army vet killed 14 and injured dozens in New Orleans by driving a truck into a New Year's Eve crowd. The FBI confirms the 42-year-old from Texas acted alone, despite earlier terror claims.
For more, former FBI agent Michael Harrigan joins.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
America is reeling this morning after what was the deadliest act of mass murder in the country in more than a year. A former Army veteran killed 14 people and injured dozens more in New Orleans when he plowed into a crowd of New Year's Eve revelers with a truck. The FBI have confirmed the 42-year-old was from Texas and that he acted alone despite previous statements officially declaring the attack an act of terror. And for the latest, I'm joined by former FBI agent Michael Harrigan live in Washington, D.C. Good morning to you, Mike. Look, you grew up in New Orleans. You know the city very well. Give us a sense of how the city is actually taking this. Well, I can say the city is taking this hard. The French Quarter is the crown jewel of New Orleans. The center of tourism down there, I mean, there's a lot more tourism that goes on all around other parts of the city and the region. But that French Quarter specifically, Mardi Gras coming up, the Sugar Bowl, and of course New Year's, is always a big holiday down there, the New Year's Eve celebration. So the city is taking this hard. I know that the authorities down there from the politicians, to the government officials, to the law enforcement are scrambling now to attempt to make the residents there feel a sense of safety after this event. It's going to take a while to get back to normal there, but they need it to return at all. I mean, that's critical for the city. And I think they're going to do that. It's going to take some time. There'll be some lessons learned here. There'll be some security lessons. And as they know more about this individual, there'll be some lessons learned across the country on how to identify these individuals and hopefully interdict them before they take these deadly acts and carry them out. Yeah, they're quite determination. It's already on display today. We've seen these live images of people actually flocking to that Sugar Bowl stadium today. Look, talk to us about this investigation. And the moments are after this attack. The FBI was very clear on this. They said they believe that he didn't actually act alone. But now 24 hours on, we're hearing a very different story. Why is that? Well, I think at the beginning, they had some videos that showed an individual placing IEDs or packages on there in the area. And other than a bunch of caution, when they see that, they have to take the stance that it could be a larger conspiracy. Now, even if they didn't have all these kinds of incidences where there's a mass casualty event, where somebody is striking out like this, you have to assume that there's a terrorist connection, that there's a group involved. That helps you focus your investigation and look beyond the individual to other actors that might be involved. Because your main concern always is a follow up attack or similar attack in another city to another location. So this is something that I think at the beginning, they saw that they didn't at that point know it may have been him placing those devices or maybe it was unrelated, but they had to take a cautious stance to let the public know that this could be something bigger so that people would know that there's a bigger threat out here and take safety measures. Look, my inner separate incident authorities say that the deadly blast outside Donald Trump's hotel in Las Vegas was a deliberate attempt to bomb that building there. What about future attacks? Are they any more likely because of this one as well? Well, absolutely. I think what you saw over in France and in Germany recently is an attack by a vehicle on pedestrians out in a public area. So there's always a risk that troubled individuals that normally you would see individuals maybe using a firearm to try to kill or hurt as many people as possible. But this could indicate a shift in strategy to be able to use vehicles. The one in Las Vegas, that appears to be potentially just suicide. They're going to be looking deep into this person's communications, what he may have said to others. He left behind a note. They'll be looking at that to find out if it was it was more there was a target involved. They were simply he was just a person suffering that decided to kill himself there at that location because remember in Las Vegas, there's indications now that he shot himself prior to the vehicle detonating. So clearly he was intending on ending his own life there. The one in New Orleans, he went in there and was highly likely that he expected not to to emerge from that alive and expected to die. It is incredibly, yeah, Mike, it is incredibly tough for those law enforcement agencies to try and prevent attacks just like this week. Thank you for your time. (air whooshing) [BLANK_AUDIO]
