At least 10 people have been killed and 30 others injured after a driver crashed his vehicle into a crowd at high speed in the city of New Orleans in the early hours of New Year’s Day.
On Wednesday, officials in the United States city described the car-ramming as a deliberate attack.
“This man was trying to run over as many people as he could,” New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick told reporters on Wednesday. “He was hellbent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did.”
The incident occurred around 3.15am (09:15 GMT) near the intersection of Canal and Bourbon streets, a busy pedestrian thoroughfare in the heart of New Orleans’s historic French Quarter, the city said in a statement.
Kirkpatrick said the driver shot two police officers after the vehicle crashed. She said the officers were in “stable” condition.
The suspect, who initially fled after exchanging gunfire with police, has been killed, United States media reported, citing local law enforcement officials.
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell described the incident as a “terrorist attack”.
We do know the city of New Orleans was impacted by a terrorist attack,” she said in a pre-dawn news conference. “It’s all still under investigation.”
But Alethea Duncan, an assistant special agent in charge of the New Orleans field office for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), said: “This is not a terrorist event.”
Later, the FBI said in a statement “We are working with our partners to investigate this as an act of terrorism.”
The White House said that US President Joe Biden has been briefed on the situation and confirmed that the FBI is on the ground alongside local law enforcement.
Videos shared online and verified by Al Jazeera show people fleeing the scene of the incident after gunshots rang out.
“A horrific act of violence took place on Bourbon Street earlier this morning,” Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry said on the social media platform X, urging people to stay away from the area where the attack took place.
The incident came towards the end of New Year’s celebrations in New Orleans and hours before the kickoff of the Allstate Sugar Bowl, a college football quarterfinal held in the city’s Caesars Superdome, with thousands expected to be in attendance.
New Orleans has seen shootings and cars colliding with crowds at past parades.
In November 2024, two people were killed and 10 others injured in two separate shootings along a New Orleans parade route attended by thousands, local media reported.
In February 2017, a pickup truck driven by a man who police said appeared to be highly intoxicated plowed into a crowd of spectators watching the main Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans, injuring more than 20 people.