Biden visits site of New Orleans truck attack
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US President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden paying their respects to victims of the Jan 1 truck attack at a makeshift memorial in Bourbon Street in New Orleans, on Jan 6.
PHOTO: AFP
NEW ORLEANS - US President Joe Biden on Jan 6 visited the scene of the New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans that left at least 15 people dead and dozens of others injured when a US Army veteran rammed a truck into a crowd of revelers.
Mr Biden and his wife Jill made a stop in Bourbon Street to pay respects to those who died there before making their way to a church for a memorial service. The First Lady laid a bouquet of flowers in front of a makeshift memorial. The President stood with his wife and crossed himself.
Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the Texas man who drove the truck and who was killed in a shoot-out with police, was an army veteran struggling to get past a recent divorce but who showed no signs of anger in the weeks before the attack, according to his half-brother.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation said the 42-year-old, who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State extremist group, acted on his own.
Mr Biden, a Democrat who leaves office on Jan 20, underscored that conclusion in previous comments made on Jan 5.
“I spent literally 17, 18 hours with the intelligence community from the time this happened, establishing exactly what happened. And we established beyond any reasonable doubt that New Orleans was an act of a single man,” Mr Biden said. “He had real problems in terms of his own, I think, mental health going on, and he acted alone.”
Mr Biden, like other presidents before him, has made multiple trips during his time in office to comfort communities after natural disasters or acts of violence.
The President’s first wife and infant daughter died in a car crash, and one of his adult sons died of cancer.
“I’ve been there,” he said on the evening of Jan 5. REUTERS
