Special Report: New Year’s Terror Attack in New Orleans: ‘Evil’ on Bourbon Street

STORIES OF HEARTBREAK AND RESILIENCE FROM A TRAGEDY THAT STRUCK THE CITY ON THE DAY IT WAS TO HOST THE SUGAR BOWL

- By LIAM QUINN, Reporting by DIANE HERBST and ALEXANDRA ROCKEY FLEMING

Single mother Ruth Chavez was capping off an unforgettable trip to New Orleans by celebrating the New Year in the fabled French Quarter with her 17-year-old son Jonathan.

Just after 3 a.m. on Jan. 1 they stepped into a crowded bar as the driver of a Ford pickup truck swerved around a parked police car and barreled through bustling Bourbon Street before opening fire with a rifle, killing 14 people and injuring dozens of others. “We were having the best time,” Chavez recalls. “For all that to be taken away in a matter of seconds, it was so crazy.”

The suspected attacker, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, a U.S. Army veteran from Texas, was killed in a shoot-out with police. The FBI says an ISIS flag was found in his truck and that he had placed explosives around the area hours before.