An Ivy League football player, a cook, a mother: the victims of the New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans
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Those who died on Bourbon Street had gathered to celebrate the new year and were locals, tourists, students and parents. University students. Parents and other people pursuing careers. A former college football player whose little brother made a name for himself in the sport, too. A Briton whose stepmother had been a nanny of Princes Harry and William.
![[A young man on the phone.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/16024ba3b6a4c6fc0c45fca5bfd28ae02e199e79/0_11_1270_1270/master/1270.jpg?width=120&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
All had gathered on the most famous street in one of the world’s most festive cities to celebrate New Year’s Day. All were murdered when a US army veteran flying a flag of the Islamic State (IS) terror group drove a pickup truck around a makeshift police blockade and into a crowd on New Orleans’s Bourbon Street in the early morning of 1 January 2025, killing 14 people and injuring dozens more before authorities shot him to death during a gun battle.
![[A young football player runs with the ball.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/583da0cb68d32c4a3a52b84a1920d92fc67c5a6d/0_0_784_756/master/784.jpg?width=120&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Among countless other grim realities, the attack underscored the obdurate threat IS poses to the US, whose military helped drive the group out of its self-proclaimed caliphate in Syria and Iraq in 2019. It also dealt a soul-crushing blow to a tightly knit region that has spent much of its recent history fighting to survive the modern era’s hardships, including destructive hurricanes, a disproportionately high number of deaths inflicted by the Covid-19 pandemic and high levels of violence that those in charge are either unable or unwilling to meaningfully address.
![[A young man smiles.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/2e479d344c6dc20eec72e033c4c9375dcc4bd0a9/0_0_848_834/master/848.jpg?width=120&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Those slain on a drag lined with bars, nightclubs and eateries were mostly in their late teens, 20s, 30s and 40s. They included residents of the local region, of other US gulf coast states, of the New York-New Jersey area and of Chelsea in west London. Similarly, among the wounded were locals, other Americans and international citizens, including from Mexico and Israel.
![[A young woman in a graduation gown.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/0cecc698561352ad1e00ea1def6af3ed30f35fdd/157_0_405_405/master/405.jpg?width=120&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
