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10 People Killed After Car "Slams" Into Crowd in New Orleans. Aired 7-7:30 am ET

Aired January 01, 2025 - 07:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[07:00:00]

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN ANCHOR: -- ready, their emergency alert system, is that their 8th District, they're working on a mass casualty event that is how they have described it so far. And again, we got that news just a matter of moments ago that at least 10 people have been killed and dozens more were injured.

We're also learning some more information from eyewitnesses who have described some of the scenes, frankly, and some of the horror and panic after a vehicle slammed into the crowd, that's the word from some of the eyewitnesses. Kevin Garcia, 22 years old, spoke to CNN shortly after this incident. He said, "All I seen was a truck slamming into everyone on the left side of Bourbon sidewalk. A body came flying at me," he said, adding that he also heard gunshots being fired. That's again from Kevin Garcia speaking with CNN just a little while ago.

Another witness from Shreveport, Louisiana, Whit Davis, told CNN the incident happened while she was at a nightclub on Bourbon Street. Everyone started yelling and screaming. This is according to Whit Davis, running to the back and then we basically went into lockdown for a little bit. Then it calmed down but they wouldn't let us leave. That's again from an eyewitness. This is Whit Davis from Shreveport, Louisiana, who said that she was there as this happened earlier this evening.

You can see some of these frightening images on your screen of just a tremendous amount of law enforcement presence again on Canal and Bourbon Street. Again from Whit Davis telling CNN, "When they finally let us out of the club, police waved us where to walk and were telling us to get out of the area fast. I saw a few dead bodies they couldn't even cover up and tons of people receiving first aid." Again that stands with the information that we were learning. Again just in the past really 30 minutes or so we learned that at least 10 people were killed and dozens more were wounded.

We actually have some emergency audio from the emergency officials and the radio sound from the incident. I'm going to play it right now just so our viewers can take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Communications to Engine 29 and all unites headed towards Canal and Bourbon [unintelligible] responding to a mass casualty incident. A vehicle ran into a crowd of people. There's multiple injuries. Multiple casualties. They need you at Canal and Bourbon."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FREEMAN: And again we're following this breaking news, a tremendously troubling story out of New Orleans this morning. We're learning that 10 people are dead, at least 30 others are injured after a vehicle drove into a crowd in the French Quarter of New Orleans, of course the very famous, very populated you can imagine area, especially on New Year's Eve going to the early morning hours of New Year's Day.

I believe we have CNN's Senior Law Enforcement Analyst Andrew McCabe joining us now.

Andrew I know that you're coming to the story of fresh and raw learning information as it comes in right now, but again just knowing that as far as we know a car drove into a crowd of people killing at least 10. Andrew give me your first thoughts. I mean we've -- we've seen this type of incident in other parts of the world over the past couple of weeks.

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Yeah, we certainly have Danny, and it's -- and it's because of those other experiences with similar mass casualty events that we have to kind of at this point really keep our minds open to any possibility. I think first and foremost of course the first responders are trying to get an accurate assessment of the injuries and the fatalities and to tend to the people on scene. And -- and that alone is a massive undertaking. Just getting the right assets to the scene can be very challenging in a place like New Orleans.

It's tough to move around there. You've got a lot of people, a lot of vehicles, a lot of potential obstructions. So they want to get as many ambulances and EMTs and medical personnel, fire personnel into that place as they can to just assess the damages and the injuries to people.

But as you mentioned we've seen in just in the last couple of months and specifically recite thinking of the Christmas market attacks in Germany that there are sometimes that that incidents like this are intentionally created.

Now we don't know if that's the case with this. It could very well be someone who was incapacitated or intoxicated or something, went the wrong way with their vehicle, reacted terribly and caused this by mistake.

And that's -- that's probably how folks on the scene are thinking about this. But you have to keep in the back of your mind the possibility that this could have been an intentional event. Someone who was in the act of protest or -- or some with some sort of terrorist purpose.

[07:05:06] Again we don't know that here yet. We haven't heard anything about the perpetrator of this mass casualty event. But, you know, folks on the scene have really got to keep an open mind as to what caused this and whether or not there are any other threats that we need to be concerned about.

FREEMAN: Well, you know, and it's interesting -- I appreciate you saying that and kind of, you know, setting the stage for us that we're still learning quite a lot about this particular incident and there's still quite a lot we don't know. But again you look at that Christmas market attack back in Germany that as we're learning seemed to truly be intentional.

But it was interesting I was here in New York back on Christmas and there was a story of a taxicab hitting a couple of pedestrians and it turned out that that was as you noted in the realm of possibilities that was someone who according to police was having a medical episode.

So I imagine that is those are two examples of the challenge of what law enforcement officers are looking at with something so terrible like this and that it could either be -- I mean it could be anything at this point. I mean, that's really the situation.

Andrew, I was also curious, I was describing some eyewitness interviews that CNN got just a little while ago and I wanted your take on this because one person said that they thought that they might have even heard gunshots in the aftermath of this car driving through.

Now, obviously in -- in chaos you could hear a lot of things but would that be -- what would that potentially tell you if that were in fact the case as a witness told us just a little while ago.

MCCABE: Yeah, I mean, I think you have to obviously you want to hear what any witnesses have to say, you want to record all those statements right off the bat. But investigators know that eyewitness testimony in the middle of an attack or an incident like this can very frequently be -- be kind of off base.

And so you got to be very careful before you start drawing conclusions about whether or not something like that happened. It's very, very frequent that really most mass shootings you'll have a couple of eyewitnesses who will say there were two shooters instead of one or you know they were shooting in two different locations. And when we sort through all that after the fact we come to find out that that was not the case. And that people sometimes mishear things and they react very strongly to things that might be the sound of gunshots.

So -- so we don't know yet. But we do know if you think about intentional acts like this one and the Christmas market attack in Germany is the most recent but there have been very many of these back across time. There's been I think probably at least three Christmas market attacks in Germany that I can think of in the last ten years or so.

We've had attacks in the United States with vehicles and large crowds. Remember Sayfullo Saipov who drove a rental truck up the West Side Highway and onto the pedestrian park there and -- and used it to run over people. So, and in some vehicle attacks I'm thinking of some in -- in the United Kingdom several years ago the attackers abandoned the vehicles and then be -- and continued their attacks on foot with knives or firearms things like that.

So it is a possibility but again you could -- we're really far from that if we -- what we have is just the word of one eyewitness hasn't been corroborated. We don't have any -- we don't have any reporting on individuals with gunshot injuries at this point. So those are the sorts of things that that investigators will want to see to try to corroborate that testimony or rule it out.

Now, and I should also say Danny, you know, we are in the age of video coverage pretty much everywhere. So I'm quite sure investigators are going back and identifying cameras that could provide relevant video to this attack and trying to trace back exactly kind of what led to it and -- and where the perpetrator came from how they drove and sort of piece things together in that way.

FREEMAN: Andrew. So I'm here in New York and I was walking around New York City last night obviously with Times Square and the dropping of the ball a tremendous amount of security. I live in Philadelphia. You know a lot of times when there are these big tentpole events, you see garbage trucks and other large vehicles that cities will bring out to -- to block areas where they know that a lot of people will be whether it's a marathon -- you know, you name it. How difficult is it to secure a place like Bourbon Street for example on a night where there are expected you would imagine to be a tremendous amount of people out and about celebrating?

[07:10:10]

MCCABE: It's very challenging, Danny, very, very challenging. Fortunately our, you know, law enforcement and particularly police agencies in large cities like New Orleans, like New York, like Philadelphia, are very good at it because they've got a lot of practice. And you've mentioned one of the most time-tested ways of doing that is you block access to the area where you want the crowd to gather.

And you can block it really with anything but one of the most effective tools that we've seen is the use of like salt trucks, like, so the trucks that would be out clearing the roads and spreading the salt down before during a snowstorm, you know, they're usually not you're not using them for that on that evening but you'll see them everywhere because they're really big, really heavy, you can't move them without the key so they're good at blocking off roads.

The key to that sort of crowd safety is getting the crowd into the area that you think is safe and then freezing that area from access to vehicles. It's, you know, New York is probably the best at this with Times Square having had this exercise every year on New Year's Eve. They're quite good at it and one of the things that they do is they control that crowds if you show up to watch Times Square you come much earlier in the day, you get put into a small kind of penned-off area. And you have to stay there until the whole thing's finished or you can't get back in.

If in places like New Orleans where you have massive crowds in -- in this area on a very frequent basis if the crowd is able to kind of move in and out organically and streets aren't blocked off that's when you start to have problems with vehicle access to those areas where you have a compressed large number of people that can't really seek safety quickly if there's a problem.

So but like I said law enforcement in this country is very, very familiar with that on big event nights like New Year's Eve. So it's -- it's a little bit odd to me that this was, you know, able to happen down there at all or that it happened in an area presumably that wasn't blocked off that vehicles could get to. That's something that the New Orleans PD will go back and look at very closely, I'm sure.

FREEMAN: Well, of course, like you said because we're talking about the Bourbon Street specifically, you know, this -- this is the, you know, the street in New Orleans where you know you will have especially on a big night like New Year's presumably a lot of people walking around.

Andrew, I'm just going to give you this update that we have from again the New Orleans mass emergency alert system. They reiterate much of what we've known before that there are 10 fatalities from this incident, 30 injured. But they note that it seems as though there's one, two, three, four, five hospitals that have received patients and those injured.

Just can you give me your reaction, I mean, how challenging is it when you have something like 30 people injured to triage to get these people the care that they need as fast as possible?

MCCABE: Yeah again, Danny, this is a skill and a mass casualty response plan that I'm sure has been in place, has been trained on, has been practiced across the first responder medical community in and around New Orleans, I'm sure, for many years. This is what happens in large cities across the country every day.

And what you're referring to is exactly the way the system is supposed to work rather than overwhelm the closest hospital or emergency room with all of the casualties. The 911 dispatchers and the ambulance drivers understand that when an event like this is called that people are going to be essentially distributed across the health care kind of network in the area.

And those hospitals as soon as this call went out on 911 have reached out to their own networks have brought in extra staffing, extra doctors, extra nurses, techs, all the folks that make the ERs around this country run and do the great work that they do.

So those -- those are the sort of kind of muscle memory issues that the first responder community. This is why they train. This is what they train for, and I think actually that update, Danny, is a really good one. We know that the system is in place and it's working the way it's supposed to. That's how you get the most care to the most injured people quickly. So that's -- that's a statistic that I'm actually happy to see.

FREEMAN: Andrew, stick with us, don't go anywhere for a second, I'm just going to check in now with CNN's Jean Casarez who I know has also been following the story this early morning, again, this hard news about a car driving into a crowd of people.

[07:15:00]

Jean, tell us what more you're learning about this hard situation coming out of New Orleans?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Danny, we are looking at live pictures right there, so obviously this is an extremely active scene they are working on. And from the almost initial call that came out and CNN was able to get that audio tape, it said there were multiple injuries and multiple casualties. So it appears as though from the beginning they knew there was a situation where there were deceased people.

What we're learning now, as you have said, is that 10 people are dead, 30 people injured. All 30 people were taken by ambulances to the hospitals. And you have just reported multiple hospitals in the area. The New Orleans Emergency Medical Services is the one that was responsible for getting all of the victims, transporting them to the hospital.

But we do not know the status of those victims. We do not know the cause of this. This is going to take a long time to really reconstruct that scene, talk to witnesses. There was one -- one young woman that came out of a bar because it was in the vicinity. They had heard what was happening at Bourbon and Canal Street.

Another person described it as a truck slamming into the people that were there at the corner of the Bourbon and Canal Street. So obviously this is something that those that were in the vicinity heard, some saw. So obviously this is just the beginning of this working scene that's going on right now as these live pictures show.

Danny?

FREEMAN: Andrew, I'm curious, you know, on a night like New Year's Eve, you imagine that there's got to be an enormous amount of law enforcement presence out on the street anyway. Can you talk to me about, does a night like this, a marquee night like this, does it make it such that if something bad happens like this, there are enough resources? Or does it make it more challenging to actually respond to a mass casualty incident?

MCCABE: Well, you know, I think the massive amount of resources that we use to secure events like this in advance are -- are -- that, you know, there's a reason for that. And it's so that you have as many hands-on duty as you can -- you can muster in the sad moment when something like this happens. So the challenge is if you find yourself in a continuing situation, it can be hard to maintain that level of staffing over a longer period of time. But, you know, hopefully that's not the situation we're in this morning. There are -- there can be some downsides to having a massive number of

people respond to an incident. We typically experience something called like self-deployment in the law enforcement community. So when the call goes out on the radio, you know, anyone in the area responds. And they usually bring -- they do that by driving vehicles to that location. And in some events, we have found that first responders, particularly ambulance crews have a hard time getting ambulances into where people are injured because there are so many vehicles like basically left on the side of the road, abandoned by police officers and others who have kind of responded to the event.

The horrible mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado years ago in the movie was kind of the prime example of that. Ambulance, you had ambulances, but they couldn't get to people and help them because of the massive traffic problem. Hopefully that hasn't happened here.

You already had a lot of people working, I'm sure, last night in New Orleans. And so those folks are fortunately on the job and doing what we need them to do. But it's -- there are the logistics around responding to attacks and events like this that I think people don't understand if you've never actually worked one. But that is certainly one of them.

Getting the first responders the right resources to the scene when you need them can be tough. You'll remember last month, the Christmas attack in Germany, they actually set up like medical triage, essentially facilities on the scene because it was so large and there were so many people injured at that market that they brought in tents and poked them up very quickly and actually were delivering medical care on site because it was easier to do that faster, more effective than trying to get the massive numbers of people out of there to hospitals and other facilities.

FREEMAN: One thing I'll note also, which is just stunning as we watch some of this frightening footage that's been coming in out of New Orleans, is you see people walking with their suitcases. Again, just to reemphasize, this is a place, this is a destination where people, tourists come to visit and to have fun, especially on New Year's Eve. And it's just -- this whole incident just so troubling and frustrating and sad.

[07:20:01]

I want to go now to the scene, though, in New Orleans. We have some reporting from CNN Affiliate WDSU's Fletcher Mackel. Andy and Jean, hold on and I'll get your reaction on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FLETCHER MACKEL, WDSU REPORTER: Yeah, and let me just kind of give you a layout of the scene here. We were on Bourbon Street. We are now on Dauphine. We've been moved off Bourbon Street. You talk about vigilance and a hyper sense of awareness from law enforcement.

Take a look here to the left. Photojournalist Stephone Cage. Just stay with us. He's going to pan down Dauphine. You can see the police lights down Dauphine. We're on Dauphine in Orleans. You see two police cruisers with their lights.

Remember, we were on Bourbon Street. So now the perimeter is moved to Dauphine. Right behind me, you can see state police. And then we have a wildlife and fisheries agent right here as well. It's truly an all- hands-on deck situation. And as you go back down Dauphine, you can see at the corner of Dauphine in the next block right there, you can see another police cruiser.

And one of the big reasons why the perimeter has been extended, I talk about that sense of vigilance and hyper awareness, is that one of the law enforcement officers saw a suspicious package on Bourbon Street. So again, law enforcement is everywhere investigating everything on Bourbon Street that you all are talking about that happened. But because they saw a suspicious package on the corner of Bourbon and Orleans, the perimeter has now been extended at least one more block.

Again, all of these law enforcement officers doing a job right now, figuring out what happened and making sure that nothing else happens in the aftermath of the tragedy that you're already talking about. So the perimeter has been extended while they investigate what they are saying is a suspicious package right now. That's why during our last live shot, we were cleared off and the perimeter has now extended from Bourbon Street to Dauphine here.

But the quarter is very eerie right now, very strange, with a heavy police presence because of the tragedy that unfolded and the investigation that continues to unfold and the hyper sense of awareness that law enforcement is dealing with right now, Travers.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FREEMAN: Again, that's CNN Affiliate WDSU's Fletcher Mackel. Jean, I'll come to you in a second, but I do want to get actually Andrew's take on what that reporter described there on the scene was an expanding scene, and you know, with the caveat that, as you can imagine, there's a lot of moving parts and a lot that law enforcement wants to check out. But what's your reaction to hearing that police have been expanding the scene and potentially investigating a suspicious package?

MCCABE: Yeah, Danny, a perfect example of the kind of fog of war that accompanies these sort of events when you don't know, you don't have a solid fix on exactly how this happened. So we talked a few minutes ago about trying to make that determination as to whether this was an accident, somebody suffering some sort of a medical emergency or intoxicated behind the wheel of a car, or if it was an intentional event.

If -- until you know what you're dealing with, you have to treat every possible development in this investigation as potentially another threat. So you're going to see a massive law enforcement response to things like -- like suspicious packages. And that could be anything, could be a box, could be a suitcase that someone left behind. And people frequently do that when they have to flee a scene because of a car accident or they get pushed out of where they were or told to go the other way by law enforcement in an effort to kind of clear an area.

People leave things behind quite naturally, backpacks, suitcases, whatever they might be carrying. And if there's no one around to claim those things, they are automatically deemed suspicious packages, and they have to then be cleared, usually by a bomb disposal or ordinance disposal team.

So this is something we should expect to see while police are still trying to get their hands around this event to understand if this was an intentional act, that the motor vehicle through the crowd was an intentional act, then you have to confront the idea that there might be additional threats until you have, you know, the perpetrator of that initial act in custody and are developing an understanding of how that happened, you have to be vigilant, you have to take everything with utmost seriousness and err on the side of caution.

So that's probably what we're going to see for a while until the police and the local law enforcement community really get their hands around this thing.

FREEMAN: And we're getting a little bit more context in terms of what has been going on outside of just the New Year's Eve and New Year's Day celebrations in New Orleans. According to our reporting and our understanding of just what goes on around this time of year, the Allstate Sugar Bowl occurring today on Wednesday in New Orleans, it was supposed to be -- you know, it is supposed to be just one of the major bowls in this college football season, and because of that on Monday, the New Orleans Police Department said it would be staffed at 100% during all the festivities, adding it had 300 additional officers assisting from partner law enforcement agencies already in the area.

[07:25:21]

So just, again, that's why we're seeing some of these images. You see officers on horseback. You see folks in this area not only because it's New Year's Eve but also because there is this anticipation of this major Sugar Bowl coming up.

Jean, I want to go to you and get your reaction, if that's all right, to the report that we heard. You and I, we've been -- we've responded to these sorts of scenes and been pushed back and had to adjust because in instances like this, the situation is ever-evolving. What was your takeaway from the reporter?

CASAREZ: Absolutely. And one of the things that the reporter was saying was that all hands are on deck. Well, we knew that, but this situation, to go along with what Andy is saying, they don't know if this is a crime scene, if this is an accident scene, if this is both of those. Because they're having to see, and they have no idea at this point, was it intentional behavior, was it reckless behavior, was it negligent behavior, was it actually someone that had a medical emergency and this happened? It is unknown at this point, so all hands are on deck looking at all of that.

And in regard to the Sugar Bowl, all eyes now, law enforcement has to really bifurcate its situation now and its people so that some look at that situation because they don't know what the cause was of this that could potentially expand, obviously, when the unknown is where you're at right now.

FREEMAN: All right, everyone, stay with us. We're going to sneak in a quick break. We are expecting a news conference happening momentarily to give us an update on this tragic story that we've been following again.

Ten killed, dozens injured after a vehicle plowed into a crowd in New Orleans. Again, stick with us. We're going to be following this breaking news all morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)