Editorial: Keep the FBI on terror guard -- New Orleans attack shows that Kash Patel must never lead bureau

New York Daily News Editorial Board, New York Daily News on Jan 3, 2025

Published in Op Eds

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The 400 New Orleans police officers on duty in the French Quarter were not able to stop the New Year’s Eve ramming attack with a pickup truck used to run down revelers on Bourbon St., nor should those cops have been expected to, even as three of those officers heroically shot dead the killer when he opened fire.

It is the FBI that is America’s counterterror force and now leads the investigation, which is still seeking others involved in the atrocity, which has killed more than a dozen, with many more wounded.

It is imperative that the FBI has to maintain its professionalism and its expertise to protect the country and Donald Trump’s choice of the unfit and dangerous Kash Patel must not become the bureau’s next director. Trump and the U.S. Senate should listen to William Webster, the only man to serve as both the FBI director and the CIA director, and not install Patel.

From the high-profile target of a packed Bourbon St. on New Year’s Eve to the black ISIS flag planted on the back of the pickup to the possible improvised explosive devices, this has all the indications of being a terror attack, like the Boston Marathon bombing or the several plots against New York.

Local police are not trained for such threats, as we saw with the use of a New Orleans police car as a roadway barrier onto Bourbon St. to temporarily replace the normal bollards which were being replaced in time for the Super Bowl next month. But the assailant, identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, didn’t wait until February’s Super Bowl or March’s Mardi Gras and just drove his Ford F-150 weapon up on the sidewalk to bypass the cop car. He only stopped when he crashed the pickup into a large crane.

New York City, long familiar with terror attacks and risks, deploys huge and heavy garbage trucks filled with even heavier sand lined up from corner to corner to block vehicle access. That’s what guarded Times Square Tuesday night and the Thanksgiving Day Parade last month. Now, sadly, other cities will learn this lesson.

And others have to learn as well. This was a homegrown assault, and not as Trump said in a social media posting yesterday from overseas, that “the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country.” Jabbar was born and raised in Texas and served years in the U.S. Army, rising to the rank of sergeant before his honorable discharge

Something made Jabbar switch his allegiance from the United State to ISIS.

As it is, last night’s Notre Dame/Georgia Sugar Bowl at the Superdome was postponed until tonight, which will have a hyper level of security. That is the price of vigilance. But there is no other option.

Terror in our streets, unfortunately, is not novel. But we can adapt to defend against it while maintaining our freedom, with the FBI at the forefront. New York, always the top target, is the best example. We have been attacked with airliners as missiles and trucks to run down pedestrians, but New Yorkers do not live in fear of terror. New Orleanians should not either.

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