By: Zoey Genrich 1/27/25
On New Year’s Eve, a tragic event happens leaving people dead, injured, and scared. A day later another event occurs with a cybertruck and an explosion outside of the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas. This article will cover the New Orleans and Las Vegas attacks on New Year's Eve.
Cops on the New Orleans scene addressing what happened.
On New Year’s Eve, people scrambled and cops, firefighters, and EMS rushed to the scene. A terrorist from Huston Texas, Shamsud-Din Jabber was left dead and the FBI arrived to investigate the scene hours later stories and articles started coming out. Mr. Rentschler the EJHS principal stated, “The New Orleans attack is terrible it’s something that should not have happened” People began to want more information; they were eager to see what happened. Later that day, there was an FBI press release, and people discovered more. In the FBI press statement, it says “Weapons and a potential IED were located in the subject’s vehicle. Other potential IEDs were also located in the French Quarter.” IEDs are Improvised Explosive Devices. Similar Items were also used in the recent attack in Las Vegas.
Only a day later in Las Vegas, a Tesla Cybertruck is parked outside of the Trump Hotel. Minutes later they started to see smoke. When first responders arrived, the truck had exploded and the driver was found dead in the charred remains of the vehicle. AP news states “On Friday, investigators said Livelsberger wrote that the explosion was meant to serve as a “wake up call” and that the country was “terminally ill and headed toward collapse.” After the fire was put out, they investigated to see the start of the fire and it did not take long to notice that there were fireworks, gas cans, and other items that can start fires. According to Mr. Grile, a middle school Media teacher at EJHS, “Any act of terrorism I feel like is related, but I think that they are both terrible and should not have happened.” There are lots of rumors about the events and lots of people wonder if they were connected. BBC News states, “President Joe Biden said investigators were looking into whether the two incidents were linked, but "thus far, there is nothing to report". No connections have been identified yet.
The Cybertruck in front of the Trump Hotel was on fire and burning to flames.
This is where the attack happened on Bourbon Street New Orleans.
The New Orleans attack has left with complaints and a loss of money. CBS News says “Some victims and family members of victims of the attack sued the city on Thursday a week and one day since the attack claiming city leaders dropped the ball.” There have been complaints about the security as well. Mr. Rentschler also states “It’s just unfortunate this stuff, more security should have been used, and was not, and lots of people got injured and killed!” This may make you wonder who the victims were in these scenarios. They were LaTasha Polk, Edward Pettifer, Nikyra Cheyenne Dedeaux, Hubert Gauthreaux, Martin “Tiger” Bech, Martin “Tiger” Bech, Kareem Badawi, Nicole Perez, Drew Dauphin, Matthew Tendorio, Billy DeMaio, Terrence Kennedy, Brandon Taylor, Elliot Wilkinson, Elle Eisele, Steele Idelson, Adam Coste, Jeremi Sensky, Jeremi Sensky, Brandon Whitsett. The people who committed the crimes were Matthew Livelsberger who was in the Cybertruck when it exploded in Las Vegas and Shamsud-Din Jabber the terrorist who was in New Orleans.
In both events, both terrorists used a rented truck from the popular rental service Turo. They also both served in Afghanistan during the same period of time. This may leave you wondering if they ever crossed paths. There is no news that they have ever crossed paths but they're still investigating. There is another coincidence: New Orleans also known as NOLA is a very popular tourist destination, same as Las Vegas. So do you think this is a coincidence or do you think it was two planned attacks and they were working together?
These are the suspects of the terrorist attacks.
In conclusion, we do not know yet if the events were linked but there is more news to come. In this article we have covered the incidents that happened, The cyber truck explosion outside of the Las Vegas Trump Hotel, and the terrible terrorist act in New Orleans on Bourbon Street. These terrible attacks happened around the New Year during a time of celebration. These acts of terror represent an unfortunate and continuous trend of violence in our country.
Sources:https://apnews.com/article/new-orleans-military-green-beret-las-vegas-cybertruck-explosion-a7febd9698219e91d3132a1e4bce3eb5 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-orleans-bourbon-street-attack-lawsuits-bill-bratton-security-expert-barriers/ https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz7qd97eyp0o
https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/fbi-statement-on-the-attack-in-new-orleans
Author Bio: Zoey Genrich is a 6th grader a EJHS she loves Italian food, and is on the swim team, her favorite book series is The Summer I Turned Pretty (also a show), and her favorite TV show is also The Summer I Turned Pretty.