On New Year’s Day, 15 people were killed and 30 were injured after a vehicle drove into a crowd celebrating 2025 in the French Quarter. The cops have their suspect who has since been described as a “terrorist.” However, his profile describes him as quite the opposite.
Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, was identified by the FBI as the suspected driver who plowed through Bourbon and Canal streets in New Orleans after the ball dropped. Authorities also said he was an Army veteran and U.S. born citizen. The Houston native explained in a YouTube video he spent 10 years in the service as a human resources specialist and information technology specialist.
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In the video, he also made his pitch as a real estate agent, noting he was a property manager at Blue Meadow Properties. ABC News found he worked for Ernst & Young and Deloitte, two of the country’s largest professional services firms, while trying to grow his real estate business.
Records also show he had a divorce in 2012 where his ex-wife sued him for child support for their two daughters who were eight and three years old at the time, ABC reports. The following year he remarried. However, he got divorced again in 2016 from his second wife noting their marriage was “irretrievably broken,” the report says.
He remarried once more in 2017 and had a son. However, it resulted in another divorce dispute over financial difficulties, documents say via ABC. By 2022, Jabbar was sending panicked emails to his wife’s attorney about possible foreclosure on their house.
On New Year’s Day, the seemingly unsuspecting businessman with a history of relationship troubles allegedly claimed the lives of over a dozen people. Authorities said they found an ISIS flag, guns and explosives inside his Ford pickup truck. When apprehended by local law enforcement, police confirmed he was fatally shot in a standoff with authorities.
The FBI is not prepared to confirm if he acted alone.
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