President Donald Trump has made his Super Bowl debut, and one of his first priorities was to honor those who were killed in the Jan. 1 New Orleans terror attack.
Upon arriving at the Superdome on Sunday, Trump met with the families of multiple victims of the attack as well as members of the New Orleans Police Department and emergency personnel.
At least 14 people were killed in the Jan. 1 attack and 57 more were injured.
The 14 victims who were killed were 27-year-old former Princeton football player Tiger Bech, 26-year-old Drew Dauphin, 18-year-old Nikyra Dedeaux, 28-year-old single mother Nicole Perez, 37-year-old Reggie Hunter, 21-year-old Hubert Gauthreaux,
Alabama student Kareem Bilal Badawi, 25-year-old Matthew Tenedorio, 25-year-old Billy DiMaio, 63-year-old Terrence Kennedy, 42-year-old Brandon Taylor, 40-year-old Elliot Wilkinson and 31-year-old Edward Pettifer.
The suspect in the attack was identified as 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a U.S. citizen from Texas and an Army veteran, who died after the attack in a firefight with police.
Some of the plaintiffs affected by the New Year’s terrorist attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans have filed a civil negligence lawsuit against the city’s leadership and the private companies that were hired to consult the city about safety planning in the French Quarter.
The lawsuit has 21 plaintiffs, some of whom are family members of the deceased, others are survivors who were critically injured in the attack.
“New Orleans is forever changed by this tragedy, and we’ve seen countless people now alter their behavior and avoid Bourbon Street and even the City itself out of fear for their physical safety.
Further, it’s impossible to quantify how many people now suffer crippling depression, anxiety and nightmares from what they saw and heard during that attack.
It is impossible to quantify this tragedy’s astounding impact on our community,” Maples & Connick partner Aaron Maples said in a statement.
The attack, along with Trump’s presence, prompted major security protocol questions amid concerns of further danger to the Super Bowl.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem defended the U.S. Secret Service’s approach for Sunday’s event in an interview with “Fox & Friends.”
“For this event, we’ve deployed many other assets as well. We’re obviously working with the local authorities, with the governor and with his agencies that he has that he’s detailed to this,” Noem said.
“But we have several different agencies under the Department of Homeland Security that have put hundreds of individuals, investigators and military police folks that are used to these kinds of crowd control and security operations in their other departments that are focused on today to make sure that this big event is going to be safe and that we’re going to make the right decisions in these situations that could arise and get everybody home safely.”
Noem also said DHS has regulations for the airspace regarding drone traffic as well as cybersecurity operations to monitor online activity.
“We will be utilizing different agencies and departments under the umbrella of Homeland Security, but President Trump has also made a commitment for us to be able to deploy other assets from other departments and agencies,
and I appreciate the flexibility that he has given us to make sure that we’re addressing this even in a way that we see as responsive coming forward,” Noem said. “We’re grateful for that interagency support, and I believe that it is unprecedented.”
