New Orleans Attack: Videos Show Shamsud-Din Jabbar Planting Bombs
By Poet Wolfe
Source The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate
Months before plowing a rented pickup truck into New Year's Day crowds on Bourbon Street, Shamsud-Din Jabbar scouted the French Quarter while recording video footage of the targeted area, the FBI revealed Sunday.
Jabbar used a pair of Meta glasses — frames with a built-in camera and speakers — in October to capture videos while planning the attack that killed 14 people and injured dozens, the FBI says. Law enforcement recovered the glasses from Jabbar's body after he was killed in a shootout with New Orleans police officers.
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The first video clip recorded by the 42-year-old Houston man showed him riding through the 500 block of Bourbon Street. Later, Jabbar stopped his bicycle at Governor Nicholls Street before taking a right turn on the 1100 block of Royal Street. He eventually passed through the 600 block of Canal Street, then braked at the intersection of Canal and Camp streets.
The final clip taken on the Meta glasses shows Jabbar recording himself in a mirror in his north Houston rental, where investigators found precursor chemicals, or substances used to create explosive devices, last week.
Other clips captured on street cameras and released by the FBI showed Jabbar planting homemade bombs in coolers throughout Bourbon on New Year's Day, shortly before ramming his truck into crowds of revelers.
Jabbar left the first explosive device at 1:53 a.m. in a blue cooler at Bourbon and St. Peters streets, the FBI said. Multiple visitors, who were unaware of the bomb inside, moved the cooler to Orleans Street, where investigators later found it. At approximately 2:20 a.m., Jabbar planted the second bomb inside of what officials described as a "bucket-style" cooler at Bourbon and Toulouse streets.
Officials said Jabbar appeared to be inexperienced in constructing and using explosive devices, but believed some could have been effective had police not responded quickly enough.
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