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10 Dead, 35+ Injured In New Orleans "Mass Casualty Incident"; White House: Biden Has Been Briefed On "Mass Casualty Incident". Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired January 01, 2025 - 08:30   ET

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

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN ANCHOR: -- of ten killed and dozens of others injured after a vehicle, a pickup truck, plowed through crowds on Bourbon Street in the heart of New Orleans.

[08:30:14]

You're looking at photos right here from the French quarter. It's been a challenging morning for this community. Local law enforcement telling us last hour that a man was driving a pickup truck exhibiting very intentional behavior. The police chief saying that this man was trying to run people over and was hell bent on creating carnage.

They emphasize this was not a DUI situation. The incident happened around 3:15 this morning. A couple of hours, of course, after the turn of the New Year.

And local law enforcement officials also said that after this man crashed and finished driving through these crowds, he then fired on police officers. Two officers were ultimately shot. We have a list of the hospitals that many of the injured victims were taken to. You can see right there more than 30 people were taken to five area hospitals across New Orleans.

We don't know at this point any information really about the suspect at the heart of this case. We don't know the conditions of all of the 30 plus people who were taken to these area hospitals.

But this all comes amid, of course, New Year's celebration last night into the early morning hours. And then, of course, the Sugar Bowl is happening today in New Orleans. A lot of people in the area, certainly in Bourbon Street and on Bourbon Street as they celebrated the New Year's.

I want to bring in CNN's Kayla Tausche now from the -- from Wilmington, I should say. She's traveling with President Joe Biden.

Kayla, I understand the president has been briefed. What can you tell us?

KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Danny, the president was briefed earlier this morning on the horrific incident in New Orleans. The White House says that it is also in touch with New Orleans Mayor Cantrell, and that the FBI is already on the ground in New Orleans offering support. We expect that Biden will be briefed throughout the day as new

information is available, and the White House has said that it is also available to provide its support to local law enforcement as this situation evolves.

Now, President Biden is here in Wilmington for a family event. He came here after a vacation post-Christmas in Saint Croix in the Virgin Islands, and we expect that he'll be departing for Camp David in just a couple of hours.

It's unclear whether that still remains his plan, but as of right now, the White House has not communicated any change of plans for the president.

Reporters could get an opportunity to shout questions at Biden when he departs for Camp David, so he could have an opportunity to speak on this matter. And that's coming up in just a couple of hours' time.

Now, we know that Biden was last in New Orleans back in September. He held an event at Tulane University to announce new funding for his cancer moonshot program, a partnership with cancer researchers at Tulane University and at the time, several of his longtime advisors were also traveling there with him. He has very close ties to the city of New Orleans, his longtime infrastructure coordinator, Mitch Landrieu, was the mayor of the city. Cedric Richmond, also a longtime adviser to the president from New Orleans, as well as his budget director.

So he has very close ties, as do many White House officials, to the city of New Orleans. But at this time, we know that Biden has been briefed, will continue to be briefed throughout the day, and we are awaiting any news on any potential statement by the president or whether he will take questions on this -- Danny.

FREEMAN: Kayla Tausche, thank you very much for that update, following President Joe Biden.

I want to turn to Andrew McCabe, who's been guiding us through this incident all morning.

You know, Andrew, one of the big questions that is still outstanding is we really did not learn anything about this suspect at the heart of this case. What do you make of that? What questions still need to be answered?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Yeah, Danny, it's really kind of baffling. It's hard to imagine that they have someone in custody, because it seems like that would have been included in the -- in the pretty, revealing press conference we got a little while ago. But, of course, you know, we can't -- we can't jump to conclusions yet, but that is really the key that will unlock the progress in this investigation.

Once they know the identity of the person behind this attack, that gives the FBI and the entire law enforcement team hundreds of different directions and leads that they can start pursuing on the intelligence side, on the physical investigative side. So, with search warrants at residences and locations and things like that, identifying people who might have known this person, who might be able to provide information about him. So it's -- that is really the linchpin of the investigation going forward and that that forward progress is important to basically answer the question of whether or not we need to be concerned about an ongoing threat.

[08:35:07]

Are there other actors out there that we need to worry about, especially in New Orleans this weekend when you have another massive event coming just a few hours from now with the Sugar Bowl? The Sugar Bowl, maybe, what, a half a mile from the site of this attack.

So they have their hands full down there in terms of the sort of things they need to be doing today. I would expect they know the answers to many of these questions. They just simply haven't shared them with us yet, which is understandable. Oftentimes, it's better to continue, or at least to start doing that investigating without the without the public's eye on every step that you're taking.

So, hopefully, we'll learn more from them at the next presser at 11:00.

FREEMAN: Yeah, certainly, because there's still so many questions along those lines to be answered.

Andrew McCabe, thank you, as always for your analysis.

We're going to take a quick break. And on the other side, we'll have more on this developing situation in New Orleans. Again, ten killed, more than 30 injured after a car plowed through Bourbon Street in the early hours of New Year's Day.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:40:02]

FREEMAN: And we continue to follow this really troubling breaking news out of New Orleans this morning. Ten killed and dozens more injured after a pickup truck drove through Bourbon Street, hitting many, many people.

There are still a lot of questions that we have about the suspect behind this, who local law enforcement said, also opened fire on at least two police officers, striking two police officers, local law enforcement officials said that this suspect went around barricades specifically to get to Bourbon Street, and was hell bent on creating carnage.

Now, we have a little bit of sound from our affiliate WVUE, from a witness from the site. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) WITNESS: Who came through with the truck and hit about four people and shot about four people. It was about eight.

REPORTER: You say you saw him, got out and shoot?

WITNESS: No, he was in a car. He didn't get out. He already hit 'em.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FREEMAN: Local law enforcement officials emphasizing this was not a DUI situation. This was, quote, a very intentional act.

For more on this, I want to bring in Juliette Kayyem. She's been helping us understand such that we can what has been going on this morning in New Orleans.

Juliette, talk to me about the FBI coming in and now investigating potential IEDs, potential improvised explosive devices. They didn't say that they had -- confirmed that they'd found one, but they are looking at this as a possibility.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yeah. So IED is a very broad term. And to the extent that what's -- what likely happened is in the car, there are things that could be explosive. There are lots of things in cars. It's a pickup car. We don't know what the perpetrators employment is.

And so they are going to call it an IED now. That's what we would call the federal nexus. That's why the FBI is in charge, because we don't know the intent of the driver. So that's the second question. Now, is this term terror, terrorism, intentional violence?

Look, overall, any rational person would look at this and say, this is terror. This is terror on an American city a few hours after the New Year, ten people dead. It's a party atmosphere. Someone intentionally evaded security precautions, also had a gun, shot two police officers.

That is different than the legal term terrorism. To bring a federal case that requires a motivation that is related to a political intent. And we don't know what that is yet. So I think part of, you know, lots of things are going on.

So my role is just to try to explain why does this seem confusing? Is, is that to bring a terrorism case in federal court, you need an intent that's related to political violence. We don't know if we have that yet.

So I think the federal and law enforcement spokespeople are trying to just simply focus on what in fact happened, an IED, potential guns, and, of course, the use of a car as a weapon of mass destruction on a city that that was celebrating, and has a big celebration tonight as well, versus the legal case that may eventually be brought against this person and who this person is. And is he dead? Is he in custody?

We don't know that yet. And so, all of that has to wait for the 11:00 a.m. New Orleans time press conference. FREEMAN: And again, much of what you're talking about specifically

because the mayor came out really, unequivocally saying this was a terrorist attack. And then the FBI later in that same press conference from about an hour ago said this was not a terrorist event.

I want to actually go now to the scene in New Orleans. We have CNN affiliate WDSU, Cassie Schirm, with perspective from the scene.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CASSIE SCHIRM, WDSU REPORTER: I'm heartbroken. I really am heartbroken. What we're seeing right now, because we are still seeing red light tarps covering things that are down Bourbon. That's why the police officers are back now in front of us. I'm -- it's just -- it's just awful. A lot of people are just waking up to this. Some people have been out of their hotels this entire time because they could not even get back to their hotels, because everything has been roped off.

So we have a lot of people that are just standing by, just trying to figure out what's going on. Some people are like asking, you know, do you know any of the victims? Do you know anything like that? What we do know is that at least 30 people have been injured, ten people are now dead after this deadly incident, after a man drove through the barricades over in this area here, made it around the barricades to go through.

And I mean, it is a very heavy scene over here, just a lot of sadness from people in this area, a tragedy, a complete tragedy, very tense too, because officers never want to see anything like this happen.

[08:45:06]

No one wants to see anything like this happen in the city of New Orleans. And I'll tell you, just watching the videos that viewers are sending me right now, we cannot even show you some of these videos because they are horrific to see anyone having lying on the ground like that, it's just -- this is not something that the city of New Orleans wants. And they have been preparing for months to make sure something like this doesn't happen, especially having more than 300 officers here last night covering this area.

And so I know there's a lot of heavy hearts right now. And, you know, my prayers are going out to everyone who was impacted by this, because watching some of those videos, I'm sure this was probably one of the worst nights for some people. And so we're going to continue to keep on asking questions and try to get more information.

Two officers are in the hospital right now. They do not have any life threatening injuries right now. So that's what we know so far.

But reporting here from Bourbon and Canal Street, I'm Cassie Schirm. Back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FREEMAN: And we have breaking news on this developing story from CNN's Evan Perez. We can now report that the suspect in this New Orleans attack is dead. That's according to a federal law enforcement official telling CNN's Evan Perez.

The suspect in this tragic both shooting and car attack is dead. That's just in to CNN. And this has been a big question because we had heard from local law enforcement and local officials on the ground in New Orleans earlier that there was this suspect in this pickup truck, but we didn't hear the status of this suspect until now. Getting this new information again from CNN's Evan Perez through federal law enforcement officials telling CNN the suspect in this New Orleans attack is dead.

I want to bring into the conversation, CNN's Ryan Young.

Ryan, you have that new information that the suspect is, in fact, dead. But I also wanted to get your reaction to that raw report, really, from that reporter on the scene. And it's striking. You see, the coroners van sitting in front of cameras to the entrance of Bourbon Street, presumably to not only do the hard work that they have to do, but also to block the view of potential carnage that's left behind there.

RYAN YOUJNG, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. Danny, let's take this in two parts. When you think about that massive scene, you not only do you have the evidence that's involved here, you're going to look at shell casings and you're going to be trying to find any sort of physical evidence on the ground. Then you have the carnage of dead bodies there. And on top of that, you want to make sure you pay the ultimate respect to them while gathering that evidence.

And with the state and the FBI involved, a lot of times they bring in a digital scene recreated, and they'll take pictures of the entire scene so they can do that later on in court and be able to show and illustrate exactly the path the truck was going through. And then how many people were hit.

But so many times when you have a situation where bodies are hit, you will find evidence 100 yards away because of the force of the vehicle. And then what it does to the human body. So just the idea that an F- 150 was used in this, and then it was steering through a crowd of people, and you can only imagine the folks running online. Some of the videos that have been spread are just hard to watch and hard to talk about.

When you talk about the suspect, I was talking to a state source since the last time I joined you, and it did seem like we were going to lead to this information, with the suspect being dead, and as he -- Evan Perez was able to confirm that.

But they were doing an abundance of caution from what I was getting from one of my sources to make sure they had the suspect that they were looking for. So there's a lot of evidence that they're going to obviously have to go through. They're going to have to take pictures of that truck and then go try to figure out, where did this truck come from? Did the person plan to be there? Was this, you know, this is such a big event. And when you think about

New Year's Eve as a person who's been down there before, there's hundreds of people who lined those streets all the time. And then you add the fact that you have two of the biggest college football programs down there for the Sugar Bowl. You can just only imagine the amount of people that could have been down there.

But this, of course, happened around 3:15. The drones were also deployed last night from the New Orleans police department. That's something. So I'm wondering, were they able to follow this truck, especially after the shots were fired through the video cameras, through officers watching it after exchanging fire? Hopefully at that point. And then did they were able to track him down and then ultimately end this?

I'm sure they're also going to try to figure out that the suspect tried to shoot himself, so it'll be interesting to see. Did he commit suicide or were officers able to take him out?

So these are all questions that we'll be trying to figure out over the next few hours. Of course, there's 11:00 news conference, so hopefully we'll get some more information then as well.

FREEMAN: Ryan Young, thank you so much for your reporting all throughout the morning. I really do appreciate it.

We're going to go to a break in just a moment. But again, the breaking news just into CNN in the past few minutes, the suspect in the New Orleans attack is dead. That's after we confirmed that ten were killed, more than 35 injured in this mass casualty attack.

[08:50:06]

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FREEMAN: We continue to cover this troubling breaking news out of New Orleans, really tragic news this morning.

But we want to go right now to the scene in the French Quarter with CNN affiliate WDSU's Fletcher Mackel. Take a listen.

FLETCHER MACKEL, WDSU REPORTER: Yeah, Travis. So we just had a second explosion here in the French Quarter. They screamed fire in the hole a second time, and they detonated what sounded like another type of explosive device. You see some people from special operations and the bomb squad working right down the street. I think photojournalists define cage has zoomed in on them right now.

So again, just to kind of set the scene here, the FBI alluded to the fact that there was an IED type -- type device that they were investigating because they feel like the suspect may have had that when he came into the French Quarter to do the harm that he did.

[08:55:00] A state police trooper called in a suspicious device. We were cleared off of Bourbon Street. We're on Dauphine right now in Orleans. About five minutes ago, we heard the bomb squad scream fire in the hole, and we heard what sounded like a firecracker going off.

And just about 30 seconds ago, or about 30 seconds before you came to me, we heard it again. Another fire in the hole and another detonation, which sounded like a firecracker going off. These aren't huge detonations.

Some of the residents that that live here are actually out watching right now following what's going on. There were people on the balconies earlier, but again, because of this investigation leading to potential IEDs in the French Quarter, we have seen police doing massive sweeps here with the gloves, searching trash cans, searching under cars, everywhere here in the French quarter, teams of police officers -- we showed you that live on TV coming through looking for suspicious packages or anything out of the ordinary.

They seem to have found one right on the corner of Bourbon in Orleans, right by the Tropical Isle Bar, which is a huge landmark for people wanting to party during Mardi gras, New Year's Eve. Other events in the French quarter.

But again, we have heard two small detonations from the special operations RV that came onto the scene down the street that you're looking at right now, and we'll continue to follow and monitor the situation here.

FREEMAN: For more on this, we have CNN's Tom Foreman with us.

Tom, I just want to get your reaction quickly as the last word here to hearing that report about bomb squads detonating potential IEDs in the French Quarter.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I will find it very interesting to find out what that really is versus what it seems to be at first blush, in part because we have that witness a short while ago talking about this man shooting from inside the car, as if he didn't even get out of the car, unless this was a case of somebody working with him or this person coming earlier and leaving things there.

I'll just be very interested to find out if that's exactly what they think it is. We've had many cases like this in the past where things are found, and authorities have to be very, very cautious. So if they see anything that looks like it could possibly be threatening, they have to treat it as if it's a real threat. But we will -- we will find out.

I'm just thinking about the sheer number of people that they have to manage on an event like New Year's Eve. It really is quite remarkable. And that makes a big difference here.

Remember, this is a town that routinely for Mardi gras takes in a million people, doubling the size of the metro area for jazz fest takes in a half million people this past year, with the Rolling Stones being there, huge, huge, huge crowds.

The police there do a lot of work to prevent this sort of thing from happening and to keep alert to these sort of things. And I will point out when this event happened, you can bet your life there were police all over that road, because that's what happens during big events. And yet they couldn't stop it.

FREEMAN: Tom Foreman, thank you so much for your perspective all throughout the morning.

Again, we've been following this breaking news all throughout the morning. Ten dead, more than 35 injured in New Orleans after a mass casualty incident. We do now know the suspect, though, in this both shooting and vehicle attack is dead. CNN has confirmed that.

A lot more still to learn. We're going to hopefully find out more at 11:00 a.m. press conference. Until then, we're going to take a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)