Fourteen people were killed and dozens more were injured when 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar drove through Bourbon Street crowds on New Year’s Day in what is among the city’s most deadly mass killings in recent history.
The attack, which ended with Jabbar being shot to death by police, stands out in its own right: It’s being investigated by the FBI as an act of terrorism, it forced the postponement of the Allstate Sugar Bowl and put law enforcement on high alert for potential explosives across the city.
But it’s not the first time a vehicle has plowed through crowds on Bourbon Street.
At least two other people were killed and scores more injured in similar, horrifying instances throughout history on the Crescent City’s most infamous street. Here’s a look back.
New Orleans police and federal agents investigate a suspected terrorist attack on Bourbon Street on New Year’s Day on Wednesday, January 1, 2025. (Photo by Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune)
April 6, 1972
Two teenagers fleeing police in a stolen car smashed through barricades and sped down Bourbon Street for five blocks on Thursday, April 6, 1972, leaving one dead and 18 others injured, according to The Times-Picayune archives.
The Associated Press reported at the time that the vehicle crashed through barricades blocking entry to Bourbon Street and drove through the crowded pedestrian mall, hitting several people on the way. Eventually the car turned onto a side street and crashed into a utility pole.
The two people inside the car fled, the AP reported.
“He was flat moving,” hot dog vendor Bob Dunlap told the AP shortly after the crash. “All of a sudden here come, bam bam, and they’re scattered all over.”
Bystanders rushed out of nearby restaurants and bars with napkins and towels to help the victims, and French Quarter residents brought blankets from their apartments, the AP reported.
Tragedy aftermath on “Street of Fun.” Pedestrians walk past smashed barricades on Bourbon Street after a stolen car plowed through the crowded pedestrian mall on April 6, 1972. (NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune archive)
One teenager was booked with murder and another was still on the lam the day after the crash, The Times-Picayune reported. Charity Hospital’s emergency room was flooded with those hurt in the crash.
It’s unclear what happened to the perpetrators.
Sept. 1, 1982
An Algiers teacher who told police he “didn’t have anything else to do” crashed through police barricades and careened down Bourbon Street on Sept. 1, 1982, according to archived articles from AP and The Washington Post.
Homer Robinson, who was in his early 30s at the time, was arrested and booked on counts of negligent injury, reckless driving and other related charges after he plowed through Bourbon Street crowds for several blocks, injuring 15 people, the AP reported.
Robinson flew down several blocks of the busy street before turning left at Ursulines, then the wrong way on Rampart, according to the AP. Robinson smashed into another car at Canal Street, where police closed in and arrested him.
Among the injured were 14-year-old Masco Thomas, who was hit by the car then dragged for about 6 feet, and his 19-year-old brother Darryl. Darryl told the AP the two were standing near the barricade when Robinson turned onto Bourbon from Canal Street.
“He stopped a little bit but then he just slammed on the gas,” Darryl told the AP. “He ran over my little brother.”
The Washington Post reported that Robinson had been arrested several times in the years prior, on counts including driving while intoxicated, reckless driving, obscenity and disturbing the peace.
It’s unclear whether Robinson was ever convicted in the Bourbon Street attack.
March 17, 1995
A Chalmette drunk driver killed a Houston woman and injured at least 37 others when he drove a beer van through Bourbon Street during a St. Patrick’s Day parade on March 17, 1995, according to The Times-Picayune archives.
Wilfred Rome Jr., who was 63 at the time, was arrested after he plowed his van through crowds attending the Downtown Irish Club parade on Bourbon near Bienville Street.
Witnesses told The Times-Picayune that Rome charged the crowd near the end of the parade route. Witnesses said the van, emblazoned with the logo of Killian’s Red Irish Ale and Crown Beverage Co., Rome’s former employer, had just turned from Bienville to Bourbon, heading toward Orleans Avenue. The parade was backed up and the van and surrounding vehicles were mobbed with people seeking beads.
Several witnesses told The Times-Picayune that the van carried a passenger on its roof: a man who was sitting in a box, dispensing beads and collecting kisses. The man fell off when the van started bucking as if the Rome was punching the gas pedal, The Times-Picayune reported.
When the passenger fell, the van plunged into the crowd.
“Instant panic,” bystander Michael Foto told The Times-Picayune. “It was the scariest situation: All of a sudden the van just bolted and came right into the crowd.”
Rome knocked people down and rolled them over, then put his van in reverse, trying to back up until a bystander muscled open the cab door and took Rome’s keys.
Police told The Times-Picayune that Rome exceeded the state’s legal intoxication limit, then .10, by blowing a .156 in a breathalyzer test about an hour after he was arrested.
Anita Malone Wyatt, 32, a mother of three, was killed when Rome’s van crushed her. A woman who suffered severe internal injuries and a man with two broken legs and other broken bones were among the most seriously injured.
Rome later pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide and 39 counts of vehicular negligent injury.
Initially, Rome was sentenced to what amounted to a year of weekend jail time and two years of house arrest, which outraged Wyatt’s friends and family. The Louisiana Supreme Court threw out the original sentence, ruling it too lenient.
In 1997, Rome was sentenced to serve 39 weekends in the St. Bernard Parish prison.
