10 People Killed, 30 Injured After Truck Is Driven into New Year's Eve Crowd in New Orleans: Police

 

Ten people are reported dead and multiple others injured after a truck drove into crowds of New Year's revelers in New Orleans on Wednesday, Jan. 1.

In a statement, city authorities said that "The 8th District is currently working a mass casualty incident involving a vehicle that drove into a large crowd on Canal and Bourbon Street."

"There are 30 injured patients that have been transported by NOEMS [New Orleans Emergency Medical Services] and 10 fatalities."

The New Orleans Police Department told said that the incident happened after the truck driver drove his vehicle down Bourbon Street at a high rate of speed.

He was then killed after he exchanged gunshots with the police around 3:15 a.m. local time.

 A witness who was at the scene of the crash told CNN’s Pamela Brown that he and his friend noticed “a lot was going on” on Bourbon Street at around 3 a.m., so they decided to go into a nearby nightclub. 

Within minutes, he said, a group of women ran in and pushed past the venue’s security guards to hide underneath tables. Cothran said he and his friend “didn’t take any chances” at the sign of trouble and ran upstairs to the club’s balcony area.

“When we got up there … it was just unimaginable casualty,” he said of his view from the balcony. “I mean, just the disfigurement and the bodies strewn, something you can’t unsee. You’ll never forget.”

Cothran and his friend counted eight bodies, he said. He described the disturbing sight of corpses nearby, including a deceased woman who was “twisted up,” a “crushed” man with “tire tracks across his back,” as well as a “young, small girl” who they earlier saw dancing in the street who was now “completely flat in the middle.”

“Only a movie script could give you the images in my head,” he said.

"We are working with our partners to investigate this as an act of terrorism," the FBI said in a late-morning statement