Scrutiny of Vehicle-Ramming Prevention Methods Continues as Bourbon Street Reopens
Bourbon Street in New Orleans reopened on Thursday following a deadly vehicle ramming attack early in the morning on New Year’s Day that killed 14 people and injured about 30 others.
The FBI identified the driver of the vehicle as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a U.S. citizen from Texas and veteran who was employed by Deloitte. The Bureau said Jabbar was operating alone and was inspired by ISIS to carry out the attack, which resulted in his death following a shootout with law enforcement.
The FBI is leading the investigation into the incident. In an update on Thursday, investigators said that on 30 December Jabbar picked up a rented Ford F-150 Lightning in Houston and drove to New Orleans. During that timeframe, the attacker posted several videos online proclaiming his support for ISIS.
“There were five videos posted on Jabbar’s Facebook account, which are timestamped at 1:29 a.m. CST and the last 3:02 a.m. CST,” the FBI said. “In the first video, Jabbar explains he originally planned to harm his family and friends but was concerned the news headlines would not focus on the ‘war between the believers and the disbelievers.’ Additionally, he stated he had joined ISIS before this summer. He also provided his will and testament.”
While the investigation continues, the City of New Orleans has come under scrutiny for how the attacker was able to gain access to Bourbon Street and for not adequately addressing security concerns in the lead-up to the attack.
In 2019, for instance, the French Quarter Management District (FQMD) hired global security firm Interfor International to conduct a physical security assessment of the quarter—which includes Bourbon Street. Don Aviv, CPP, PCI, PSP, CEO of Interfor International, says the firm reviewed systems, technologies, and historical incidents, as well as spoke to stakeholders—business owners, residents, and police agencies—to compile the assessment, which was partially released to the public in 2020.
“We specifically outlined that terrorism and bollards were a potential issue, and that the bollard situation needed to be rectified,” Aviv says.
Bourbon Street had a bollard system in 2019, but Interfor assessed that many of the bollards were not placed well or were not functioning. The system featured bollards that could be dropped down to allow permitted vehicle traffic on the street. This feature, however, was not being used because of claims that Mardi Gras beads had entered the tracks of the system and prevented the bollards from being raised properly.
Aviv says the firm did not believe those claims and was told by local business owners that when the bollards were deployed, they disrupted food and beverage deliveries that they relied on, so the bollards were often left in the down position. The New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) was the agency with the authority to raise or lower the bollards.
“The overarching recommendation from Interfor was to make most of the thoroughfares within the French Quarter pedestrian-only,” Aviv says. “That was our ultimate security recommendation because they are pedestrian-only during all the festivals and Mardi Gras events and parades. So, they should be [pedestrian-only] 24/7 because that’s the only way to stop this and protect pedestrians.”
The City of New Orleans was in the process of replacing the bollard system on Bourbon Street in preparation for the 2025 Super Bowl when the attack occurred. The bollards were not deployed, but a police cruiser was parked in the street to deter traffic from driving down the street—a mitigation measure that was ultimately ineffective.
The city has not returned Security Management’s request for comment on what type of bollard system was in place on Bourbon Street or what it is being replaced with.
Rental Vehicles
The New Orleans driver rented the vehicle for the attack using Turo, which allows individuals to list their vehicles for rent by other individuals using a smartphone application. In a separate and unrelated incident on New Year’s Day, another individual rented a vehicle from Turo to use in an explosive attack in front of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.
A Turo spokesperson tells Security Management that the company is “outraged by the misuse of our marketplace by the two individuals who perpetrated these acts.”
The spokesperson declined to provide specifics on how Turo renters are screened when using the application but did confirm that the company uses what it calls a Turo Risk Score composed of more than 50 internal and external data sources to assess renters.
“These individuals in question had valid driver’s licenses, clean background checks, and were honorably discharged from the U.S. military,” the spokesperson says. “They could have boarded any plane, checked into a hotel, or rented a car or truck from a traditional vehicle rental chain. We do not believe these two individuals would have been flagged by anyone—including Big Rental or law enforcement.”
The spokesperson adds that during Turo’s 12-year history with data from 90 million booked days, 27 million trips, and 8.6 billion miles driven, “less than 0.10 percent of Turo trips end with a serious incident such as a vehicle theft.”
In a statement shared with Security Management on Friday morning, Turo CEO Andre Haddad said that the company is consulting with national security and counterterrorism experts to learn more about how to improve its rental process to prevent similar incidents in the future.
“2025 is off to an awful start,” Haddad said. “While I mourn today, I also remain committed to pioneering and sustaining a strong, secure, trustworthy marketplace for tomorrow.”
Between 2000 and 2022, there were 185 incidents of vehicle rammings around the world that mostly occurred in the United States and Europe, according to data from Brian Michael Jenkins, senior adviser to the president of RAND and director of the Mineta Transportation Institute’s Allied Telesis National Transportation Security Center.
The majority of intentional vehicle ramming incidents Jenkins has studied were committed using the driver’s personal vehicle or family vehicle. But he has found that incidents where the driver rented the vehicle account for 25 percent of total fatalities from intentional vehicle ramming incidents.
“I think that’s not simply because of the vehicle—although that is a major factor—but that it represents that the rental of a vehicle is a sign of premeditation,” Jenkins says. “Someone is doing this seriously. This is not an emotional crisis. This is not spontaneous. It’s not the result of anger provoked by events. It’s a plan. Therefore, it’s likely to be more serious.”
The rental of a vehicle is a sign of premeditation.
Attacks in Context
The first known ideologically motivated or politically motivated vehicle rammings took place in Israel and were carried out by Palestinians driving into groups of off-duty Israeli soldiers waiting at bus stops to travel to their post or back home.
“Hamas and Palestinian Islamic jihadists claimed responsibility for some of the attacks and exhorted some of their followers to carry them out,” says Jenkins, adding that the tactic was never endorsed by Yassir Arafat, former president of the Palestinian National Authority.
Vehicle ramming attacks didn’t become a more popular attack method until the 2010s when al Qaeda pivoted towards recruiting followers via the Internet and through Inspire magazine. Jenkins recalls articles in the magazine that instructed readers how to carry out attacks, the type of vehicle to obtain for the attack, and potential target types where groups of people might be gathered.
“I think the turning point was probably the 2016 attack in Nice, France, by an individual jihadist who acquired a heavy cargo truck and plowed through a crowd of people who were gathered to watch Bastille Day fireworks,” Jenkins says. “It killed 86 and hundreds were injured.”
While it is impossible at this point to say if the New Orleans attacker was inspired by the Magdeburg attacker, who drove into a crowd at a German Christmas market on 20 December, Jenkins explains that intentional vehicle ramming attacks do occur in clusters and there appears to be a contagion effect. Security practitioners working in cities where major upcoming events will be held should review their mitigation measures to prevent and limit the damage from intentional vehicle ramming attacks.
“This is something that always comes up in an equation between terrorism and security,” Jenkins says. “The terrorists always have the advantage in that equation because terrorists can attack anything, anywhere, anytime. We cannot protect everything, everywhere, all of the time. But we can shove the threat around. We can try to protect some select set of targets at a high level on a continuing basis.”
One example Jenkins and Aviv both highlight is the major security effort around Times Square in New York City on New Year’s Eve. Ahead of the event, which attracts around 1 million people, New York authorities close streets to vehicle traffic, erect vehicle barriers, install checkpoints for visitor screening, and more.
“All the access points of Times Square were blocked off by movable barriers, vehicles, and garbage trucks filled with sand,” says Aviv, who works in New York City. “They deploy technology throughout, yet still have access points for fire and ambulance. It just takes planning.”
Bruce Braes, CPP, PSP, global head of security and public safety consulting at Buro Happold, says there are several solutions that security practitioners and city planners can use to mitigate the impact of a vehicle ramming attack.
“The trick is in the word mitigation,” Braes says. “You want to mitigate both the opportunity for an attack to an occur, and, if it does occur, to limit the impact of the attack.”
One popular, and aesthetically pleasing, solution is to use large planters made of reinforced steel with concrete inserts. They are extremely heavy and will cause a vehicle to crumple if struck. Braes also mentions street benches, which can be made of reinforced concrete to stop a vehicle from moving forward if hit.
“I’ve seen a couple of cities where they’ve used water features in public ground,” Braes adds. “A stream that’s about 2-foot deep through the middle of a town square that makes it hard to drive a vehicle across.”
There are also portable hostile vehicle mitigation measures, made of reinforced steel and connected to the ground they’re placed on, that are increasingly being used for events, such as around football stadiums in the United Kingdom.
“They’re brought out before match day, taken away after match day, and pretty simple to put in place and move around,” Braes says.
These temporary measures could be a solution to be implemented if an existing bollard system needs to be replaced—such as in New Orleans. And the planning process should be used to limit updates to the system ahead of times when there is likely to be an increase in pedestrian traffic.
“If you’re going to remove the mitigations you have in place, you want to make sure you do it at a time you’re least likely to have a serious incident—at the quietest periods of the year,” Braes says. “You can put temporary measures in place while dealing with replacing your permanent measures.”
Reassessing the Threat
Following the vehicle ramming attacks during the holiday period, Braes says it’s important for city planners, architects, and security practitioners to consider how vehicles can be used as weapons when designing public spaces.
“We have to accept the fact in this day and age that those actors with malicious intent have realized that using simple weaponry is far less risky, far less likely to be detected prior to the event,” Braes adds. “And motor vehicles are one of those simple basic weapons that can be used by anybody.”
Motor vehicles are one of those simple basic weapons that can be used by anybody.
This is especially the case in Europe and the United States, where three-quarters of all intentional vehicle ramming incidents Jenkins has studied have occurred. The United States alone accounts for about half of all attacks.
“I think that unique distribution represents this as a tactic that groups have used to exhort followers at a distance to carry out attacks that are within their logistical and operational capabilities,” he says
These types of attacks are also extremely difficult to detect before they occur, partly because they can be carried out by a single individual.
“Unless the person is really thumping their chest on the Internet and boasting, it’s going to be very, very hard for intelligence to pick that person up,” Jenkins says. “We have intelligence; we don’t have an x-ray for a man’s soul. What we see is that we have a higher success rate in uncovering conspiracies. Where we frequently miss them is the single operator.”
For more on mitigating intentional vehicle ramming attacks, check out the UK National Protective Security Authority’s Hostile Vehicle Mitigation guidance, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s Vehicle Incident Prevention and Mitigation Security Guide, and the Mineta Transportation Institute’s Smashing into Crowds Analysis of Vehicle Ramming Attacks.
