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.
“Everybody is impacted by this,” says Lenny Motwani, 42, who owns bars and restaurants in the neighborhood and witnessed the aftermath of the deadly chaos. “But we’re resilient, and we’re going to heal from this.” Here, those on the ground share stories of loss and survival.
‘We Heard Banging and the Squealing Tires’
JIM MOWRER, 38, DES MOINES
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