Six people were injured and the father of a man who died in the Attack on a New Year’s truck filed a lawsuit Thursday against the city of New Orleans and two contractors, claiming they failed to protect partygoers from a Army veteran who sped around a police blockade and ran down Bourbon Street, killing 14 people and injuring at least 30.
The attack continues Shamsud-Din Jabbar was tragic but preventable, leaving the six victims with broken bones, physical suffering and mental anguish and the death of Brandon Taylor, according to the lawsuit filed by Matthew Hemmer with the Morris Bart Law Firm in Orleans Parish Civil District Court. Jabbar was killed during a shootout with police.
The plaintiffs, who are seeking unspecified damages, include Alexis Windham, who suffered collisions and gunshot wounds to her foot, and Corian Evans, Jalen Lilly, Justin Brown, Shara Frison and Gregory Townsend, who suffered broken bones and other injuries. They were accompanied by Brandon Taylor’s father, Joseph. Windham, Evans, Lilly and Brown are from Alabama, while Frison and Townsend are from Missouri.
Taylor, 43, worked as a restaurant chef in the New Orleans area and loved music, especially rap. He is survived by his fiancée, who was with him when he was killed, and his father.
Email and phone messages left with the city of New Orleans, Mayor LaToya Cantrell and contractors Mott MacDonald and Hard Rock Construction seeking comment on the lawsuit were not immediately returned.
Incidents of vehicles driving into crowds began to increase after 2016, when 86 people were killed on Bastille Day in Nice, France, the lawsuit said. New Orleans sought guidance on the risk of these types of attacks in the French Quarter and invested $40 million in projects to improve public safety, including the purchase of portable bollards – protective columns designed to block vehicular traffic – to keep cars from Bourbon Street to keep.
However, the bollards were often disabled when the tracks they were traveling on became clogged with beads, liquor containers, rainwater and other liquids, the lawsuit said. A 2019 report from New York firm Interfor International said the French Quarter was at risk of vehicular attack, adding that “the current bollard system on Bourbon Street does not appear to be working” and needs to be fixed immediately.
An April 2024 report from Mott MacDonald, a design firm hired for road projects, mentioned the possibility of a Ford F-150 truck driving onto Bourbon Street, which happened on New Year’s Day, but the company’s bollard replacement project did not include fixed bollards in the French Quarter, the lawsuit said.
Construction on the security updates began in November, but work on Canal Street did not begin until Dec. 19 and construction continued on Jan. 1, when the attack occurred, the lawsuit said. Authorities have said Jabbar drove an F-150 pickup onto the sidewalk around a police car blocking the entrance from Canal Street to Bourbon Street.
“No appropriate barriers, temporary or otherwise, were placed on the construction site,” the lawsuit states. “This gave the intersection the appearance of a soft target. Upon initial penetration, Mr. Jabbar was able to travel approximately three blocks to Bourbon Street.”
The contractors and the city failed to implement an effective system to deter such a threat, the lawsuit said.
Two others law firms announced this on Wednesday y that they are representing nearly two dozen victims of the attack and are conducting their own investigation, stating that “officials were tragically aware and failed to protect the public.”