• A man drove into a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans on New Year's Day, killing 14 people.
• Ruth Chavez, 40, was there celebrating with her 17-year-old son. They narrowly escaped harm.
• She told BI she hoped the horrific attack wouldn't ruin their beloved mom-and-son tradition.

This as-told-to essay is based on an interview with Ruth Chavez, 40, who, along with her 17-year-old son Jonathan, witnessed the New Year's Day terrorist attack that killed 14 people in New Orleans. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

As mom and son, we've made it a tradition to go to New Orleans every year.

We've been to the city for three years running, and after our first visit, we felt completely comfortable and safe.

We've never felt like we were in danger at any time, except for our most recent night there, when, of course, the attack happened.

A yearly tradition

We don't really go out in Albuquerque, New Mexico — our home.

Our city is not very safe. We have a very high crime rate, so that's always my biggest fear with my son, a high school senior.

I try to avoid him going out anywhere in Albuquerque because he's young, and I feel like I can't protect him.

That's why we always go out of town to have fun. I take him on these trips to New Orleans to have a good time without worrying.

This time, we planned the trip seven months in advance. We were in town for the New Orleans Saints and Las Vegas Raiders game.

My son, Jonathan, is a diehard Saints fan, and the Raiders are my team. We were just having the best time on our vacation.

New Year's Eve in the French Quarter

On our last night, we were hanging out on Bourbon Street, enjoying the music and the people, and having a great time.

But my son is 17, so he couldn't go to most places.

We were winding down for the night when we happened to walk into this one bar, which had its doors open all the way around. We were in there for probably a few minutes when we started hearing gunshots.

The bar's owners shut all the doors and told everybody to get down. We stayed in there, taking cover for about five minutes.

Then we walked out the door and saw the truck had crashed right in front of where we were.

Several people were on the ground. People were trying to save them, but there was no saving them.

We thought it was just a car crash — we didn't instantly know the magnitude of what had happened.

I was just watching this kid — a similar age to my son — die.

That could have easily been us if we had been on that street just a second longer.

A lucky escape

People were screaming, and nobody knew what was going on.

Then, weirdly, it got kind of quiet. Everything kind of settled down.

The police came and started putting up tape and making us leave.

Bourbon Street was very quiet — all you could hear was the sirens.

If that bar hadn't let us in, we would've been on that street, in the direct path of that truck. We would have been either run over or shot.

We were very, very lucky.

New Orleans, the city we love

Usually, on our last day, we do some shopping and take pictures. We're so pumped from having had so much fun.

This time, we didn't do any of that.

We just felt grief in our hearts, and it was just an awful feeling. We didn't even want to eat. We were just ready to go.

As bad as it was, I can't begin to say how thankful I am that we could leave New Orleans and get on that plane.

I got emotional thinking that these other people wouldn't get that chance. They won't be able to go home to their families the way we were able to.

Do we go back?

We were planning to go to a game next year in New Orleans, but now we're unsure about that.

I don't want to say we won't go for the game, but it's too soon to say we definitely will. We still haven't even processed everything.

Jonathan and I were talking about whether we would go back to the city again, and I said I would hate for that one person who was so evil and who did such a horrific act to ruin it for us.

So, we plan on returning to New Orleans at some point and not letting this deter us from the city we love.

• A driver killed 15 people in a vehicle-ramming attack in New Orleans on New Year's Day.
• Bollards were installed in 2017 to limit vehicle access but soon after began malfunctioning.
• They were being replaced over New Year's. The attacker drove around the police's makeshift barricade.

New Orleans was removing and replacing traffic bollards around the site of the mass killing there on New Year's Day.

Police officers had installed a makeshift barricade, but the driver was able to get around it, going on to kill 15 people.

The attacker was driving a rented Ford pickup and struck people celebrating on Bourbon Street at about 3:15 a.m. The suspect has been identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42.

Footage from just before the attack shows the vehicle turning right off Canal Street and onto Bourbon Street, swerving around a police car partially blocking the street.

"This particular terrorist drove around onto the sidewalk and got around the hard target," the New Orleans Police Department's superintendent, Anne Kirkpatrick, said Wednesday at a press conference.

"We did have a car there, we had barriers there, we had officers there, and they still got around," she said. "We did indeed have a plan, but the terrorist defeated it."

A partially finished project

Reuters said bollards were installed in 2017 at intersections in New Orleans' French Quarter ahead of the NBA All-Star Game that year, which the city hosted.

When they were placed around Bourbon Street in December 2017, NOLA.com reported that they were part of a $40 million safety plan to block intersections during special events.

A 2017 report commissioned by New Orleans and reviewed by Reuters said the French Quarter was an area "where a mass casualty incident could occur."

It followed a 2016 vehicle-ramming attack in Nice, France, where a truck drove into a crowd on a national holiday, Bastille Day, and killed 86 people.

In the following years, attacks in Sweden, Spain, the UK, and the US prompted the spread of street barriers in major cities designed to protect against vehicle attacks.

At the time of Wednesday's attack, Bourbon Street was partway through New Orleans' Bollard Assessment and Replacement Project, which started in mid-November.

It was scheduled to be completed in February this year.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, New Orleans' mayor, LaToya Cantrell, said: "Bollards were not up because they are near completion, with the expectation of being completed, of course, by Super Bowl."

The Super Bowl is set to be held on February 9 at Caesars Superdome, a little over a mile away from Bourbon Street. The finish date is also a little ahead of Mardi Gras, New Orleans' most famous celebration.

Cantrell said the original bollards started to malfunction soon after they were installed and were prone to being clogged by Mardi Gras beads. The police deemed them "inefficient," hence the replacements, she said.

The city said the scope of the work involved "replacing old bollards with new removable stainless-steel bollards."

One eyewitness, Jimmy Cothran, told NBC News that he was surprised not to see metal street barriers up this year.

He said: "They weren't up, so you still kind of had to watch your back for cars."

An engineer who worked on the bollard project, speaking with NBC News on the condition of anonymity, said there was "a mad dash to rush this job" in time for the Super Bowl.

They said that when the original bollards were being installed, hydraulic roadblocks were added during construction to protect pedestrians but that this time lesser measures were used, like orange traffic drums.

Footage also shows a police cruiser partially blocking the entrance to the street.

New Orleans City Council's president, Helena Moreno, told WWL-TV that she thought the bollards should have been done earlier. She added that she wasn't sure whether they would have prevented the deaths.

"This person was ready to inflict pain and death and harm on crowds in Bourbon Street," she said, "and I think he would have tried to find whatever way that he could."

• The New Orleans attack suspect carried an ISIS flag and pledged fealty to the group, officials said.
• The group, best known for global mass killings in 2015-2017, has again been gathering strength.
• The group was damaged but not defeated by a US-led campaign.

Back in 2017, the ISIS militant group's reign of terror appeared to be coming to an end.

A US-led coalition ousted its fighters from strongholds in Iraq and Syria, where they had ruled with brutality and inspired a series of harrowing attacks on Western cities.

The loss of its bases and the assassination of many of its leaders badly dented its power, and its prominence faded.

The attack in New Orleans on Wednesday brought the group back into stark prominence.

Fifteen people were killed when the driver of a truck slammed into New Year crowds on Bourbon Street — authorities said the suspect pledged allegiance to ISIS and flew its flag.

Experts and security officials have in recent months issued increasingly urgent warnings of ISIS gathering strength.

ISIS has "remained a continuing threat," said Jessica White, a terrorism analyst at London's Royal United Services Institute, even though it "had to adapt after its territorial defeat."

"They are a diffuse and networked organisation that has alliances and branches that continue to wield influence, cause terror, and further their goals," she told Business Insider on Thursday.

The FBI said it is investigating what ties the suspect, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, may have had with the group. Authorities at first said Jabbar likely did not act alone, though in a press briefing on Thursday the agency said it no longer believes anyone else was involved.

ISIS renews itself

ISIS was little-known in 2015, when it shocked the world by seizing swaths of Syria and Iraq and putting them under a severe form of Islamic law.

The group became known for atrocities, staging theatrical beheadings of hostages, seizing thousands as slaves, and orchestrating waves of terror attacks.

Its adherents cumulatively killed hundreds of people in attacks on Western cities, including Paris and San Bernardino in 2015, Berlin, Brussels, Nice, and Orlando in 2016, and London and Barcelona in 2017.

Attacks in Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia killed many hundreds more.

A US-led military response, launched under President Barack Obama and continued under President Donald Trump, gradually eroded the group with airstrikes supported by allied militias on the ground. 

It culminated with the assassination of its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, by US special forces in 2019.

Trump has since boasted of destroying the group, claiming at last year's Republican National Convention that in his first term "we defeated 100% of ISIS."

Since then, the US has maintained a small military presence in northern Syria meant to monitor and extinguish potential resurgence by the group.

Analysts say the group has seized on instability in Afghanistan, where the Taliban regained power after the 2021 US withdrawal, and ongoing chaos in Syria to quietly rebuild its strength.

The group's Afghan affiliate, ISIS-K, presents a particularly potent threat, wrote Colin Clarke, Director of Policy and Research at The Soufan Group, for Foreign Policy in August.

"It is both pushing its propaganda to a more global audience and threatening attacks farther afield," he wrote.

ISIS-K was linked to the March 2024 attack on a music venue in Moscow where 145 people were killed, as well as an attack on a procession in Kerman, Iran, in January 2024 where 95 were killed.

In August, officials foiled a planned ISIS attack at a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna, Austria. The CIA's deputy director said extremists planned to kill "a huge number" there. 

Tactics to spread terror 

One of the main challenges for investigators will be to establish whether the New Orleans attacker took direct instruction from ISIS or was acting on his own volition, Sajjan J. Gohel, International Security Director at the Asia-Pacific Foundation, told CNN. 

The group mostly does not directly train extremists at its bases to carry out attacks, unlike the terror group Al-Qaida.

Instead, it largely remotely recruits and directs followers to carry out attacks that don't require much training, such as vehicle ramming or knife attacks.

Clarke, the ISIS expert, described this approach in his August article, called it a "virtual entrepreneur" model.

"Operatives in Afghanistan or Pakistan make contact with would-be ISIS-K supporters abroad to try to convince them to carry out attacks in the countries where they reside," wrote Clarke. 

Attacks following that model include the 2016 beheading of a Catholic priest in a church in France, according to reports at the time. 

The group is now less concerned with recruiting members in Syria and Iraq, and more on inciting attacks, said White, the RUSI expert.

"While the focus has shifted away from gathering followers to a centralised physical Caliphate, this has transformed the messaging to encouraging devotees to commit attacks whenever, wherever, and by whatever means they can," she said.

The New Orleans attack had "several strategic and symbolic considerations as potentially textbook ISIS," Gohel said.

Vehicle-rammings have been a feature of many deadly, ISIS-linked attacks.

The group's sophisticated propaganda is another powerful tool, enabling it to exploit grievances and attract supporters anywhere where there is internet access.

In some cases, followers with no direct links to the group have carried out attacks in its name. The 2017 Westminster Bridge attack in London seemed to fit that pattern.

The group's use of the internet, and success in radicalising those with no previous extremist links, make it particularly difficult to tackle.

"None of this is new. They just continue to throw it out every single day," Aaron Zelin, an expert on jihadist groups at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told NBC News of the group's methods. "And from their perspective, the hope is that it sticks with somebody,"

• Turo is an app that allows people to rent out their cars to other drivers.
• The app was used to rent the vehicles used in two deadly incidents on New Year's Day.
• Since it was founded in 2009, it has grown into the largest car-sharing app of its kind.

Turo is the car-sharing app used to rent the vehicles involved in deadly New Year's Day incidents in Las Vegas and New Orleans.

It's like an Airbnb for cars, allowing people to get paid for leasing their vehicles to other drivers.

Users get easy access to short-term rentals, while owners can rent out their vehicles as a side hustle or even a full-time business.

Compared with conventional car rental companies, Turo can sometimes offer lower prices or more convenient locations. It makes a commission on rentals and doesn't have to run a fleet of cars.

Turo lists a very wide variety of vehicles, with some 1,600 makes and models on offer, including the CEO's own Porsche 911 Carrera S. The platform also lists campervans and more exotic vehicles such as the Cybertruck to rent.

Andre Haddad, CEO of Turo, told CNBC on Friday that the company is working with law enforcement and that neither of the men who rented vehicles raised red flags when using the platform.

He said they were "decorated servicemen" and that they could have rented vehicles from a traditional car rental chain or checked into any hotel.

"There were no red flags. No one would have flagged them as a security risk. So it's a very challenging situation to deal with," he said.

Haddad said that the company uses an algorithm to screen for potential "trust and safety issues" with renters. He also said the company hasn't seen any short-term changes from owners listing their vehicles on the platform.

The biggest car-sharing app in the US

Turo was called RelayRides when it was founded in 2009 by Shelby Clark, an entrepreneur and investor. The company changed its name to Turo in 2015 as it began to focus on longer-term rentals over quick trips. That year, it was included on Forbes' list of "hottest on-demand startups," with a valuation of $311 million.

It's now the largest car-sharing app in the US, ahead of competitors such as Getaround and Car Shair. Turo had 360,000 cars listed on its platform at the end of 2023, and about 3.7 million bookings were made that year, according to a March 2024 filing. It is available in Canada, France, the UK and Australia as well as the US.

Turo says it aims to put the world's 1.5 billion vehicles to better use and aspires to "fundamentally change car ownership," per its website.

"The goal for us is to continue to grow the business as fast as possible for the next many many years," Haddad told CNBC in September.

Haddad is a former eBay executive who was born in Lebanon. His company bio states that he helped grow eBay revenue from $750 million to $11.7 billion before joining Turo as CEO in 2011.

Turo reported nearly $880 million in revenue in 2023, up 18% year-on-year. It posted $14.7 million in profits, down from $154.7 million in 2022. Losses and high costs are common for fast-growing tech companies, especially those that are not yet public.

Turo has close to 1,000 employees and was valued at $1.5 billion in 2020, per PitchBook. The company registered for an IPO in 2021 but has not yet gone public.

In September, Turo announced a partnership with Uber that will give users access to Turo rentals on the Uber app.

"By joining forces with Uber, Turo is well positioned to penetrate a massive $150B-plus total addressable market," Andro Vrdoljak, Turo's business and corporate development VP, said in a press release.

How Turo vets users

To book a car on Turo, users need to set up an account with their email, phone number, credit card, and driver's license.

In most cases, approval is instant but can take up to 48 hours if additional information, such as an insurance score or criminal background check is needed, according to the company's website.

"Every Turo renter is screened through a proprietary multi-layer, data-science-based trust and safety process. We utilize over 50 internal and external data sources to build, maintain, and improve on our best-in-class Turo Risk Score," a Turo spokesperson told Business Insider on Thursday.

The men involved in both incidents had valid driver's licenses and clean background checks, they added.

After 12 years of operation and 27 million trips booked, fewer than 0.1% of Turo rentals ended with a serious incident, such as vehicle theft, the spokesperson said.

The company was working with law enforcement to support investigations into both incidents.

Employees from Turo's trust and safety team have interrupted vacations and returned to work to help monitor and respond to the aftermath of the incidents, Bloomberg reported.

In the March 2024 filing, Turo said that it has no control over or ability to predict the actions of car renters, who it calls guests.

"We cannot conclusively verify the identity of all guests, nor do we verify or screen third parties who may be present during a trip using a vehicle booked through our platform," Turo stated. "Our trust and safety processes focus primarily on guests to reduce the risk of vehicle theft and motor vehicle accidents."

Cybertrucks

Most major car rental companies don't offer Cybertrucks, so drivers who want to try one out but aren't willing to shell out nearly $100,000 to buy one have turned to platforms like Turo.

Last January, about a month after Tesla's launch event for the Cybertruck, some owners were already listing their vehicles on Turo for about $1,000 per day.

Some Turo hosts bought Cybertrucks specifically to rent them out to those curious about the model, InsideEVs reported in August.

Rental rates appear to have come down since then. On Thursday, for instance, Business Insider saw the option on Turo's website to book a Cybertruck for $174 a day in the Washington, DC, area.

In November, Tesla started offering leases for Cybertrucks. A three-year lease runs $1,249 a month.

Tesla first unveiled the Cybertruck in 2019, though production didn't start until 2023. The model has attracted attention from renters and buyers for its distinct shape, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has billed the Cybertruck as tough enough to survive an apocalypse.

In the past year, Tesla has issued six recalls for the model, the latest of which warned that the Cybertruck could lose drive power.

What's your experience hosting or renting with Turo? Contact these reporters at [email protected] and a[email protected]

• The suspect in the New Orleans attack was interviewed by a journalist back in 2015.
• The reporter said the suspect, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, gave "no red flags."
• Jabbar talked about the difficulties of adjusting to civilian life after serving in the Army.

A reporter has spoken about an interview he conducted 10 years ago with the man now suspected of conducting Wednesday's deadly attack in New Orleans.

The suspect, 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, was named by the FBI following the attack, which saw a pickup truck drive into crowds on Bourbon Street at around 3.15 a.m. on New Year's Day, killing 15 people and injuring at least 35 others.

Jabbar was shot and killed by police.

Sean Keenan, a freelance contributor to The New York Times, said he recognized Jabbar from a photo shared by the FBI, and said he interviewed him for Georgia State University's college newspaper in 2015.

Keenan told CNN his "head was spinning" when he found out.

Jabbar attended Georgia State University between 2015 and 2017, studying computer information systems, according to the Times.

Keenan interviewed him back then for an article about the difficulties veterans have adjusting to post-military life.

"What little I remember about that interview was a very cool, calm and collected guy," Keenan told CNN. "Nothing about his character threw any red flags."

Keenan said he recalled Jabbar as having a "pretty reserved demeanor" and being "a little bit distant" in a way he said was familiar with veterans who had difficult deployments.

Jabbar, who served in the Army between 2007 and 2015, was deployed to Afghanistan between February 2009 and January 2010, military spokespersons said Wednesday.

He worked as a human resources specialist there, the Times reported, and later served in the Army Reserve until 2020, per the outlet.

In the interview with Keenan, reproduced in the Times on Wednesday, Jabbar talked about problems he was having adjusting to civilian language, compared to the military jargon he was used to.

"The culture isn't too much different but once you get out of the military there's so many different acronyms you've learned," Jabbar said. "You're not sure what terms are used outside of the military."

He also said he had a good experience with the university's military outreach center.

Police said they found an ISIS flag in the Ford F-150 pick-up truck used in Wednesday's attack, and authorities are investigating Jabbar's potential connection to terrorist organizations.

Chris Pousson, a retired Air Force veteran and former schoolmate of Jabbar's, told the Times that after they reconnected on Facebook in 2015, he noticed Jabbar posting a lot about his faith.

"It was never Muslim extremist stuff, and he was never threatening any violence, but you could see that he had gotten really passionate," he said.

Pousson and other former acquaintances described Jabbar as quiet and polite, per the outlet.

Reflecting on his old interview, Keenan told CNN he is "still processing it all."