Bodycam Footage Reveals New Orleans Attacker Shot At Police Before They Killed Him

The slain attacker, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, drove a white pick-up truck into the city's heavily crowded Bourbon Street in the early hours of New Year's Day.

New police bodycam footage has revealed that the New Orleans attacker opened fire at police from inside his vehicle before officers shot and killed him.

The slain attacker, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, drove a white pick-up truck into the city’s heavily crowded Bourbon Street in the early hours of New Year’s Day. Declaring his support to ISIS through multiple posted videos, he committed the terrorist act that killed 14 people. Dozens more also suffered injuries.

The footage, released on Jan. 10, showed police approaching the vehicle after it crashed, with two officers standing with their guns raised by the driver’s side door. According to the Public Integrity Bureau’s Force Investigation Team, one of the officers, Christian Beyer, identified himself and asked Jabbar to exit the truck. According to CBS News, the footage was taken on another officer’s bodycam, Luis Robles.

However, Jabbar began to shoot from behind an airbag. Robles and other officers, located farther away, dove onto the ground to evade the gunshots. Beyer and two officers closer to the vehicle began to shoot back, killing Jabbar in the crossfire.

The New Orleans Police Department deemed that the officers’ training led them to make these “split-second decisions” to open fire. NOPD Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick applauded them for putting their lives at risk to apprehend Jabbar.

“Officers are trained for shoot scenarios like that — they’re highly trained, and that’s what you saw. These are split-second decisions,” stated Kirkpatrick in a news conference.

She added, “They killed the terrorist…They are national heroes.”

With the investigation ongoing, Kirkpatrick also did not disclose how many shots Jabbar let out. Despite this, she emphasized that the officers’ actions followed protocol.

“All officers are faced with ‘shoot, don’t shoot,'” she continued. “And this was clearly within the law and clearly, solidly within policy.”

However, all the officers who responded to the scene were placed under administrative reassignment. Kirkpatrick did not elaborate on why or provide further insight into the police statements to investigators.

The release of bodycam footage follows a lawsuit filed by some victims. The filing claims that the police department did not provide adequate security measures to prevent such an attack.

The city has heightened security plans, including a SEAR-1 designation, for its upcoming hosting of Super Bowl LIX in February.