New Year Day celebrations in the US City of New Orleans turned sour after a truck drove high speed into a crowd at the famed Canal and Bourbon Street, killing ten persons and injuring 30 others.
According to witnesses at the scene the truck crashed into the crowd at high speed, and then the driver got out and started firing a weapon, with police returning fire.
“Once it was past us, we did hear gunfire, saw police running in that direction,” Nicole Mowrer one of the witnesses told told CBS.
“Once the gunfire stopped, we stayed in the alcove until the gunfire stopped, came out into the street, and came across a lot of – several people who had been hit, (we) wanted to see what we could do to help.
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said the New Year’s Day mass casualty incident was a “terrorist attack”.
The driver “was hellbent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did”, Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick told journalists.
“This man, this perpetrator, he fired on our officers from his vehicle when he crashed his vehicle. Two of our officers have been shot. They are stable,” said Kirkpatrick.
The FBI is investigating the incident, according to law enforcement officials.
At that hour, the area would been packed with revelers celebrating New Year in the French Quarter district, renowned for its bars, restaurants and jazz history. With agency reports
