AUSTIN (KXAN) — At least 10 people are dead and dozens more are injured after a man drove a truck into a crowd in New Orleans Wednesday morning.
The FBI identified the driver as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, a U.S. citizen and Army veteran from Texas, and said it is working to determine Jabbar’s potential associations and affiliations with terrorist organizations.
Jabbar drove a rented pickup truck onto a sidewalk, going around a police car that was positioned to block vehicular traffic, authorities said. A barrier system meant to prevent vehicle attacks was undergoing repairs in preparation for the Super Bowl, which is scheduled to take place there in February.
‘Breach the perimeter’
Steve Allen is the founder of Crowd Safety, a crowd management and event safety consultancy.
Allen said he also works closely with the Pink Bows Foundation, which enhances funding mechanisms that support and bolster training, crowd safety management and tailored protocols specific to outdoor music festivals and large-scale events.
Allen said Jabbar was able to “breach the perimeter.”
“If that person is hell bent on getting in there, then we’ve got to make it what we call ‘target hardening,'” Allen said. “They’ve managed to get through there. There’s a failure somewhere 100%. If you’re having vehicle mitigation in place, it’s like water. If you had a dam built, if you leave a void somewhere, the water is going to travel and get in there.”
When coming up with a safety plan for a large crowd gathering, Allen said there are several factors he looks at and he starts with a risk assessment.
“How many thousands of people are we expecting? What’s the dispersal rate?” Allen said. “Are we anticipating that at midnight, we’re going to be at full capacity, and then suddenly, data might inform us from previous years, that over a period of an hour or two hours, 60% of the crowd will leave?”
The Sugar Bowl is being moved back a day after the attack in New Orleans, and the city is also set to host the Super Bowl in February.
“I would imagine that there’s a lot of focus on this now because Louisiana, they can’t have a another problem. I’m sure, like they’ve said, there will be lessons learned. I’m sure this is reverberating not just across America, but across the entire world,” Allen said.
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